title: Lasting impressions from first conferences (with memories of H.S. Gibbs and others)

authors: Lowe, David J.

abstract: I attended my first conference of the New Zealand Society of Soil Science in December, 1979. It was held at Telford Farm Training Institute near Balclutha, with John Bruce the chief organiser. With me from Waikato University was mentor Harry Gibbs, who had just retired. Perhaps the most enduring impression I have from the meeting was of the pervasive friendly and supportive atmosphere, a characteristic I have come to associate with all the Society's meetings I have since attended. In part this atmosphere is the result of the relatively small size of the Society's conferences. After I gave my talk, Phil Tonkin kindly took the time to point out several pedological features in the slides I had just shown, one being the evidence for tree overturn in a Kainui soil. This simple act has always remained with me because it showed that someone was interested in my work, which is very important for students feeling their way into the world of 'real' science. John Bruce was another who made an impression in a similar way. He was at the time putting the finishing touches to his report on the soils of Hamilton City (under the watchful eye of editor Rod Furkert). I was quite taken that he wanted to note some of my findings in his report which eventually appeared as a 'personal communication'. This demonstrated to me that undertaking research was more than an exercise: it could lead to publication which was a very alluring siren.

text: Lasting impressions from first conferences (with memories of H.S. Gibbs and others) I attended my first conference of the New Zealand Society of Soil Science in December, 1979. It was held at Telford Farm Training Institute near Balclutha, with John Bruce the chief organiser. With me from Waikato University was mentor Harry Gibbs, who had just retired. Perhaps the most enduring impression I have from the meeting was of the pervasive friendly and supportive atmosphere, a characteristic I have come to associate with all the Society's meetings I have since attended. In part this atmosphere is the result of the relatively small size of the Society's conferences. After I gave my talk, Phil Tonkin kindly took the time to point out several pedological features in the slides I had just shown, one being the evidence for tree overturn in a Kainui soil. This simple act has always remained with me because it showed that someone was interested in my work, which is very important for students feeling their way into the world of 'real' science. John Bruce was another who made an impression in a similar way. He was at the time putting the finishing touches to his report on the soils of Hamilton City (under the watchful eye of editor Rod Furkert). I was quite taken that he wanted to note some of my findings in his report which eventually appeared as a 'personal communication'. This demonstrated to me that undertaking research was more than an exercise: it could lead to publication which was a very alluring siren.

year: 2002

title: Dressing for battle in the new global economy: Putting power, identity, and discourse into public relations theory

authors: Weaver, C. Kay

subjects: public relations

abstract: This article argues that public relations theorists need to acknowledge their generally unspoken support for, and allegiance to, corporate capitalist power and to reconsider that allegiance in the context of the new economy. In my view, such a move would encourage more open consideration of whether public relations scholarship should be contributing uncritically to the development of a globalized capitalist economy and of where public relations theory should be positioned in relation to the development of that economy. If mainstream public relations theory were more open to theorizing structures of power, it would also be more open to consideration of how public relations practice could be appropriated by, and work to serve the interests of, those groups who perceive themselves as disempowered by globalization or who oppose the philosophies and/or economic effects of that globalization.

text: Dressing for battle in the new global economy: Putting power, identity, and discourse into public relations theory This article argues that public relations theorists need to acknowledge their generally unspoken support for, and allegiance to, corporate capitalist power and to reconsider that allegiance in the context of the new economy. In my view, such a move would encourage more open consideration of whether public relations scholarship should be contributing uncritically to the development of a globalized capitalist economy and of where public relations theory should be positioned in relation to the development of that economy. If mainstream public relations theory were more open to theorizing structures of power, it would also be more open to consideration of how public relations practice could be appropriated by, and work to serve the interests of, those groups who perceive themselves as disempowered by globalization or who oppose the philosophies and/or economic effects of that globalization.

year: 2001-11-01

title: Brown bodies, white coats: Postcolonialism, Māori women, and science

authors: McKinley, Elizabeth

abstract: This project investigates the historical construction of 'Māori woman' and the constitution of the subjectivities of Maori women scientists today. The central question that is raised by the thesis is 'Do discourses of 'race' and gender found in Enlightenment science at the time of Aotearoa New Zealand's colonization continue to affect the contemporary subjectivity of Māori women scientists, and if so, how?' I have used literary historical techniques and feminist narrative interviews to collect the research data. Deconstruction, and its technique of 'double reading', has been applied through out the thesis to both the literary historical texts (imperial archives) and the transcripts of the interviews. I have argued that a poststructuralist view of the 'splitting the subject' to enable multiple positions must be read alongside the postcolonial view of a contemporary 'colonized subject' of an already 'split' subjectivity. 
This thesis is divided into two sections. Section A investigates Māori women as the objects of science. I argue that in Aotearoa New Zealand journeys of discovery and colonization were also scientific journeys that brought 'Māori woman' under the intellectual control of the emerging 'scientific' academy. At the same time, drawing on the 'imperial archives', I show that stereotypical signifiers are incorporated within scientific discourses and shape the fictions that these texts represent. In Section B I draw on open-ended interviews with 16 Māori women scientists who were asked to discuss their identity in relation to their schooling and workplaces. I explore the conditions by which the subject 'Māori women scientist' emerges and how the Maori women experience these conditions in relation to how they see themselves. I conclude by arguing that the identity of 'Māori woman scientist' appears to be 'impossible fiction' due to the fragmented nature of the sign - 'Māori, 'woman' and 'scientist' - that can be 'traced' to the historical construction of the signs.

text: Brown bodies, white coats: Postcolonialism, Māori women, and science This project investigates the historical construction of 'Māori woman' and the constitution of the subjectivities of Maori women scientists today. The central question that is raised by the thesis is 'Do discourses of 'race' and gender found in Enlightenment science at the time of Aotearoa New Zealand's colonization continue to affect the contemporary subjectivity of Māori women scientists, and if so, how?' I have used literary historical techniques and feminist narrative interviews to collect the research data. Deconstruction, and its technique of 'double reading', has been applied through out the thesis to both the literary historical texts (imperial archives) and the transcripts of the interviews. I have argued that a poststructuralist view of the 'splitting the subject' to enable multiple positions must be read alongside the postcolonial view of a contemporary 'colonized subject' of an already 'split' subjectivity. 
This thesis is divided into two sections. Section A investigates Māori women as the objects of science. I argue that in Aotearoa New Zealand journeys of discovery and colonization were also scientific journeys that brought 'Māori woman' under the intellectual control of the emerging 'scientific' academy. At the same time, drawing on the 'imperial archives', I show that stereotypical signifiers are incorporated within scientific discourses and shape the fictions that these texts represent. In Section B I draw on open-ended interviews with 16 Māori women scientists who were asked to discuss their identity in relation to their schooling and workplaces. I explore the conditions by which the subject 'Māori women scientist' emerges and how the Maori women experience these conditions in relation to how they see themselves. I conclude by arguing that the identity of 'Māori woman scientist' appears to be 'impossible fiction' due to the fragmented nature of the sign - 'Māori, 'woman' and 'scientist' - that can be 'traced' to the historical construction of the signs.

year: 2003