title: Paradoxical mobilities: sharemilking with Te Raparahi Lands Trust (Wāotū)

authors: Hutcheson, Gail Yvonne

subjects: mobilities

abstract: Mobilities are important for capturing some of the combined movements of people, animals and objects in all of their complex relational dynamics. Sharemilking involves a cascade of mobilities: from the modest journies of the everyday to the upheaval of complete farm moves. Here we examine how sharemilkers are enabled and constrained in different ways by being mobile and landless, but also included are hopeful geographies. The sharemilker's mobile relationship to land, rather than ownership of it, works well with indigenous ideas of kaitiakitanga (guardianship) that is a central feature of multiply owned Māori land trust (Te Raparahi). Combining sharemilker mobility with te Raparahi, and importantly Ngāti Hūri historical and contemporary connections to Te Wāotū in South Waikato, Aotearoa New Zealand, reveals paradoxical mobilities of place.

text: Paradoxical mobilities: sharemilking with Te Raparahi Lands Trust (Wāotū) Mobilities are important for capturing some of the combined movements of people, animals and objects in all of their complex relational dynamics. Sharemilking involves a cascade of mobilities: from the modest journies of the everyday to the upheaval of complete farm moves. Here we examine how sharemilkers are enabled and constrained in different ways by being mobile and landless, but also included are hopeful geographies. The sharemilker's mobile relationship to land, rather than ownership of it, works well with indigenous ideas of kaitiakitanga (guardianship) that is a central feature of multiply owned Māori land trust (Te Raparahi). Combining sharemilker mobility with te Raparahi, and importantly Ngāti Hūri historical and contemporary connections to Te Wāotū in South Waikato, Aotearoa New Zealand, reveals paradoxical mobilities of place.

year: 2017

title: 'Making its own history': New Zealand historical fiction for children,1862-2008

authors: Clark, Louise Henriette

subjects: children's literature

abstract: This thesis considers historical fiction for children and young people dealing with New Zealand history from the arrival of the first Polynesian settlers to the end of the nineteenth century.  It provides both a comprehensive survey of historical novels published between 1862 and the end of 2008, and an analysis of the way the same historical events and periods have been depicted in historical novels written at different times.  Individual chapters discuss books set during specific historical periods or dealing with particular events - the pre-European period, early contact, nineteenth century immigration, the New Zealand Wars, the gold rushes, and the colonial period - in chronological order of publication.  Since children's literature is particularly adept at reflecting and promoting the dominant ideas of the society in which it is produced, the chronological consideration of these texts reveals contemporary attitudes to such issues as race relations, gender roles, class, war and conflict, and concepts of national identity, as well as the way historical fiction has responded to societal changes since the 1860s.  

The predominant themes of historical fiction set prior to 1900 are: the arrival of settlers in New Zealand; encounters with the country's indigenous inhabitants; the taming of the often hostile landscape; the assertion of the settlers' claims to 'belong' in their new land; and the establishment of New Zealand as a nation with distinctive characteristics.  There are perceptible nuances and differences in the way these themes are discussed depending on the historical moment in which individual authors are writing.  Novels of the Victorian period and early twentieth century reflect the imperialistic and evangelistic ethos of the time, and present the British settlers' right to colonize the land and the ensuing dispossession of Māori as largely unproblematic.  Subsequent historical novels, particularly those written since the 1960s, offer a more inclusive version of New Zealand history, although the lack of historical fiction for children by Māori writers means that Eurocentric views of history continue to dominate, and that all representations of Māori and their history are mediated through Pakeha writers.

Shifts in social attitudes have resulted in changes in the treatment of Māori in historical novels for children, and similar changes have occurred in the portrayal of gender, class, and ethnicity.  The passage of time has seen increased agency and a wider variety of roles allocated to Māori, female and working class characters, as well as greater ethnic diversity.  Developments in New Zealand historiography are also reflected in fiction, although at times historical fiction prefigures written histories, or provides alternative views by depicting the experience of women, children and Māori, who often did not feature in conventional histories.  While many historical novels for children, especially the earlier texts, are adventure stories set in the past and are not necessarily concerned with historical verisimilitude, an increasing number attempt to present authentic recreations of historical periods, including accounts of actual people and events, based on extensive research, and reinforced with peritextual material in the form of historical notes, bibliographies, maps and photographs.  

The role of New Zealand historical fiction for children and young people has been not only to entertain young readers and inform them about their country's past, but to create and foster a sense of national identity.

text: 'Making its own history': New Zealand historical fiction for children,1862-2008 This thesis considers historical fiction for children and young people dealing with New Zealand history from the arrival of the first Polynesian settlers to the end of the nineteenth century.  It provides both a comprehensive survey of historical novels published between 1862 and the end of 2008, and an analysis of the way the same historical events and periods have been depicted in historical novels written at different times.  Individual chapters discuss books set during specific historical periods or dealing with particular events - the pre-European period, early contact, nineteenth century immigration, the New Zealand Wars, the gold rushes, and the colonial period - in chronological order of publication.  Since children's literature is particularly adept at reflecting and promoting the dominant ideas of the society in which it is produced, the chronological consideration of these texts reveals contemporary attitudes to such issues as race relations, gender roles, class, war and conflict, and concepts of national identity, as well as the way historical fiction has responded to societal changes since the 1860s.  

The predominant themes of historical fiction set prior to 1900 are: the arrival of settlers in New Zealand; encounters with the country's indigenous inhabitants; the taming of the often hostile landscape; the assertion of the settlers' claims to 'belong' in their new land; and the establishment of New Zealand as a nation with distinctive characteristics.  There are perceptible nuances and differences in the way these themes are discussed depending on the historical moment in which individual authors are writing.  Novels of the Victorian period and early twentieth century reflect the imperialistic and evangelistic ethos of the time, and present the British settlers' right to colonize the land and the ensuing dispossession of Māori as largely unproblematic.  Subsequent historical novels, particularly those written since the 1960s, offer a more inclusive version of New Zealand history, although the lack of historical fiction for children by Māori writers means that Eurocentric views of history continue to dominate, and that all representations of Māori and their history are mediated through Pakeha writers.

Shifts in social attitudes have resulted in changes in the treatment of Māori in historical novels for children, and similar changes have occurred in the portrayal of gender, class, and ethnicity.  The passage of time has seen increased agency and a wider variety of roles allocated to Māori, female and working class characters, as well as greater ethnic diversity.  Developments in New Zealand historiography are also reflected in fiction, although at times historical fiction prefigures written histories, or provides alternative views by depicting the experience of women, children and Māori, who often did not feature in conventional histories.  While many historical novels for children, especially the earlier texts, are adventure stories set in the past and are not necessarily concerned with historical verisimilitude, an increasing number attempt to present authentic recreations of historical periods, including accounts of actual people and events, based on extensive research, and reinforced with peritextual material in the form of historical notes, bibliographies, maps and photographs.  

The role of New Zealand historical fiction for children and young people has been not only to entertain young readers and inform them about their country's past, but to create and foster a sense of national identity.

year: 2010

title: Understanding 'the National Sport for New Zealand Women': A Socio-Spatial Analysis of Netball

authors: Marfell, Amy Elizabeth

subjects: Netball

abstract: Since the early 20th century, netball has been heralded ‘the national sport for New Zealand women’ and it continues to represent one of the few team sport environments not characterized by the interests and participation of men. Created by and for women, netball promotes and preserves a sense of women-onlyness. There is, however, a link between netball and femininity that has gone largely unexplored among contemporary studies of sport.
	This research focuses on the social production of netball space and the ongoing and complex relationship between netball and heteronormative femininity in New Zealand. Drawing upon interviews with 16 recreational players and ethnographic fieldwork conducted over two years, I examine how women experience, negotiate and challenge notions of gender, sexuality, corporeality and subjectivity in spaces of netball. Adopting a poststructural feminist interpretation of Henri Lefebvre’s spatial theory, I demonstrate how the relationship between women’s sporting bodies, space and social relations is mutually constituted.
In this thesis, I explain spaces of netball as reproducing and celebrating particular gendered and sexualized identities and thus, prioritizing a relatively narrow but culturally valued heteronormative feminine athletic ideal. Whilst some women enjoy and are empowered by the social conditions of this sport, the power relations operating on and through netball spaces can also work to subordinate and exclude alternative or ‘other’ femininities and bodies. Yet, as my research reveals, netball also offers opportunities for resistance as some netballers engage in oppositional politics and/or use this space to disrupt normative discourse. This is particularly evident in the ways some players resist the involvement of men, how mothers use netball space to obtain momentary reprieve from the expectations of motherhood, and how pregnant, ‘fat’ and older bodies challenge the discursive construction of the contemporary (feminine) athletic ideal via their participation in this sport. To this end, this research not only demonstrates the social geography of netball in the everyday lives of New Zealand women, but also the potential of theoretical syntheses between Lefebvre and feminism for offering productive new ways to think about the interrelationships between active bodies, identities, space, power and resistance in sport and female physical culture.

text: Understanding 'the National Sport for New Zealand Women': A Socio-Spatial Analysis of Netball Since the early 20th century, netball has been heralded ‘the national sport for New Zealand women’ and it continues to represent one of the few team sport environments not characterized by the interests and participation of men. Created by and for women, netball promotes and preserves a sense of women-onlyness. There is, however, a link between netball and femininity that has gone largely unexplored among contemporary studies of sport.
	This research focuses on the social production of netball space and the ongoing and complex relationship between netball and heteronormative femininity in New Zealand. Drawing upon interviews with 16 recreational players and ethnographic fieldwork conducted over two years, I examine how women experience, negotiate and challenge notions of gender, sexuality, corporeality and subjectivity in spaces of netball. Adopting a poststructural feminist interpretation of Henri Lefebvre’s spatial theory, I demonstrate how the relationship between women’s sporting bodies, space and social relations is mutually constituted.
In this thesis, I explain spaces of netball as reproducing and celebrating particular gendered and sexualized identities and thus, prioritizing a relatively narrow but culturally valued heteronormative feminine athletic ideal. Whilst some women enjoy and are empowered by the social conditions of this sport, the power relations operating on and through netball spaces can also work to subordinate and exclude alternative or ‘other’ femininities and bodies. Yet, as my research reveals, netball also offers opportunities for resistance as some netballers engage in oppositional politics and/or use this space to disrupt normative discourse. This is particularly evident in the ways some players resist the involvement of men, how mothers use netball space to obtain momentary reprieve from the expectations of motherhood, and how pregnant, ‘fat’ and older bodies challenge the discursive construction of the contemporary (feminine) athletic ideal via their participation in this sport. To this end, this research not only demonstrates the social geography of netball in the everyday lives of New Zealand women, but also the potential of theoretical syntheses between Lefebvre and feminism for offering productive new ways to think about the interrelationships between active bodies, identities, space, power and resistance in sport and female physical culture.

year: 2016