title: Joy lands

authors: Agrawal, Shivani

subjects: Poetry

abstract: For as long as I can remember, I have been sad. When I moved from India to Aotearoa alone at eighteen, I hoped something would sand down the grief – the Pacific, green air, sidewalk lichen. I created my own displacement and I did not know how to initiate my return. This is what precedes joy.

I had not yet learned that you have to look for joy. You have to recognise it when it arrives. Before I could see that it was joy that ate wonton soup with me and found me by the lake in fur slides – it ended. I was on a one-way plane to India and my body would never be these joys again. This is what follows the end of joy.

When joy ends, it is impossible not to notice the ways in which the world demands suffering from us. We lean on no one, cry in bathrooms and eat alone. The world spins sadder. This is why you must pursue joy.

JOY LANDS is a poetry collection about finding joy across lands and inside bodies through language, girlhood, queerness, and long-haul flights. While these poems are forever in motion across time and space, they are rooted in the presence of other people and in small, indelible moments of tenderness – an almost-wishbone neck, yolk-yellow tulips, taking turns to piss.

The collection is split into three sections, each querying the conditions for joy: something unjoyful, if not terrible, must precede it; some form of hurt must always follow the end of it, and you must continue to pursue joy.

JOY LANDS is a pursuit – I enter joy. I witness joy. I make joy.  These poems are lonely and dream-like, funereal and moon-shaped, and bright hot orange. Joy is a build-up and I am just getting started.

text: Joy lands For as long as I can remember, I have been sad. When I moved from India to Aotearoa alone at eighteen, I hoped something would sand down the grief – the Pacific, green air, sidewalk lichen. I created my own displacement and I did not know how to initiate my return. This is what precedes joy.

I had not yet learned that you have to look for joy. You have to recognise it when it arrives. Before I could see that it was joy that ate wonton soup with me and found me by the lake in fur slides – it ended. I was on a one-way plane to India and my body would never be these joys again. This is what follows the end of joy.

When joy ends, it is impossible not to notice the ways in which the world demands suffering from us. We lean on no one, cry in bathrooms and eat alone. The world spins sadder. This is why you must pursue joy.

JOY LANDS is a poetry collection about finding joy across lands and inside bodies through language, girlhood, queerness, and long-haul flights. While these poems are forever in motion across time and space, they are rooted in the presence of other people and in small, indelible moments of tenderness – an almost-wishbone neck, yolk-yellow tulips, taking turns to piss.

The collection is split into three sections, each querying the conditions for joy: something unjoyful, if not terrible, must precede it; some form of hurt must always follow the end of it, and you must continue to pursue joy.

JOY LANDS is a pursuit – I enter joy. I witness joy. I make joy.  These poems are lonely and dream-like, funereal and moon-shaped, and bright hot orange. Joy is a build-up and I am just getting started.

year: 2024

title: Phylogeography of New Zealand’s coastal benthos

authors: Ross, Philip M.

subjects: genetic differentiation

abstract: During the past 30 years, 42 molecular studies have been undertaken in New Zealand to examine the phylogeography of coastal benthic invertebrates and plants. Here, we identify generalities and/or patterns that have emerged from this research and consider the processes implicated in generating genetic structure within populations. Studies have used various molecular markers and examined taxonomic groups with a range of life histories and dispersal strategies. Genetic disjunctions have been identified at multiple locations, with the most frequently observed division occurring between northern and southern populations at the top of the South Island. Although upwelling has been implicated as a cause of this disjunction, oceanographic evidence is lacking and alternative hypotheses exist. A significant negative correlation between larval duration and genetic differentiation (r2 = 0.39, P < 0.001, n = 29) across all studies suggests that larval duration might be used as a proxy for dispersal potential. However, among taxa with short larval durations (<10 days) there was greater variability in genetic differentiation than among taxa with longer pelagic periods. This variability implies that when larval duration is short, other factors may determine dispersal and connectivity among populations. Although there has been little congruence between the phylogeographic data and recognised biogeographic regions, recent research has resolved population subdivision at finer spatial scales corresponding more closely with existing biogeographic classifications. The use of fast-evolving and ecologically significant molecular markers in hypothesis-driven research could further improve our ability to detect population subdivision and identify the processes structuring marine ecosystems.

text: Phylogeography of New Zealand’s coastal benthos During the past 30 years, 42 molecular studies have been undertaken in New Zealand to examine the phylogeography of coastal benthic invertebrates and plants. Here, we identify generalities and/or patterns that have emerged from this research and consider the processes implicated in generating genetic structure within populations. Studies have used various molecular markers and examined taxonomic groups with a range of life histories and dispersal strategies. Genetic disjunctions have been identified at multiple locations, with the most frequently observed division occurring between northern and southern populations at the top of the South Island. Although upwelling has been implicated as a cause of this disjunction, oceanographic evidence is lacking and alternative hypotheses exist. A significant negative correlation between larval duration and genetic differentiation (r2 = 0.39, P < 0.001, n = 29) across all studies suggests that larval duration might be used as a proxy for dispersal potential. However, among taxa with short larval durations (<10 days) there was greater variability in genetic differentiation than among taxa with longer pelagic periods. This variability implies that when larval duration is short, other factors may determine dispersal and connectivity among populations. Although there has been little congruence between the phylogeographic data and recognised biogeographic regions, recent research has resolved population subdivision at finer spatial scales corresponding more closely with existing biogeographic classifications. The use of fast-evolving and ecologically significant molecular markers in hypothesis-driven research could further improve our ability to detect population subdivision and identify the processes structuring marine ecosystems.

year: 2009

title: Treaty People Recognising and Marking Pākehā Culture in Aotearoa New Zealand

authors: Black, Rosanne Marjory

subjects: Pakeha culture

abstract: The suggestion that all people are cultural and live in cultural worlds acts to challenge members of culturally dominant groups as they tend to see their way of life as normal rather than cultural. Dominant group members usually talk about themselves in relation to their national identity (New Zealander, Australian, or American) rather than name being part of a cultural group within their nation state. This study, located in Aotearoa New Zealand, explores with a particular group of New Zealanders, how Pākehā who are members of the dominant group, may come to recognise themselves as being cultural, to name themselves culturally, and to mark aspects of their culture. The contribution that recognising culture makes to a decolonisation agenda is also explored. This study of Pākehā culture is approached from both a realist and a social constructionist perspective. Culture, an abstract concept, is largely theorised as a constructed notion in a historically structured location. How culture is recognised, and the ways it is produced and enacted, through relationships and interactions in the broader structures of New Zealand society were explored using realist thematic methods of analysis. Treaty people are a network of mostly Pākehā activist educators who have engaged in promoting knowledge of and support for Māori claims for justice under Te Tiriti o Waitangi (the Treaty of Waitangi was the document signed by Settlers and Māori leaders in 1840 to establish settlement arrangements). Treaty people are practised in talking about cultural issues largely through their engagement with Māori - Pākehā relationships. The research focused on the situations and processes that stimulated a group of thirty four ‘Treaty people’ to start thinking about themselves as cultural; about what it meant to have a cultural identity; and what they recognised as markers of their culture. I have been a member of this Treaty People network for many years and carry the dual positioning of being the researcher, and a participant, both as a member of the group and as a Pākehā. Data was collected over an eighteen month period from two focus groups in 2003 and 2005. These sessions were video and audio-recorded and later transcribed. I meet with available participants in their own locations early in 2005 and audio-recorded the conversations. The transcriptions and notes form the data for this study. My findings from this study include: • Culture was often first recognised through encounters with different cultural groups and usually when a person is in a situation where they are in a minority. Although, dominant group members do not always see their own daily practices and values as cultural they often name as cultural the practices and values of people different from them. • Recognising and naming ourselves as cultural and marking our culture were difficult tasks that go against the grain of dominance. • Pākehā culture was recognised in a number of ways. Treaty people recognised that there were other forms of knowing about the world and that dominant group members valued being ‘right’ and in control of knowledge. Coming to recognise themselves as cultural unsettled a sense of certainty about their position in the world, and opened up possibilities for new ways to engage in intercultural relationships where participation rather than being in control was valued. • Accepting the name Pākehā implied having a position of responsibility to tangata whenua and to the land. In turn those who have accepted being Pākehā receive a sense of belonging to Aotearoa and a place to stand in justice alongside Māori and other people who are culturally different from them. • While this thesis does not make explicit links between ‘being cultural’ and a decolonisation agenda the Treaty People participants named strategies to support decolonisation and challenge Pākehā dominance which include: recognising practices and values that are perpetuated through colonisation, in particular egalitarianism, assimilation and superiority; recognising Māori as tangata whenua (first people of the land) and Te Tiriti o Waitangi relationships; taking up the challenge to seek justice through striving to deal with past wrongs and to engage in equitable relationships with Māori. This thesis contributes to the psychology and social science literature as it serves to address the question “We don’t have a culture … do we?” I posit that all psychologists do have a culture and provide some rich descriptions, for those who are Pākehā, of how their culture may be recognised, how it might be described and talked about. This is a core cultural competency requirement for psychologists. My thesis also contribute to a growing body of literature from members of dominant groups, who are developing a discourse to explore and make visible their cultural or raced (whiteness) positions of power and privilege.

text: Treaty People Recognising and Marking Pākehā Culture in Aotearoa New Zealand The suggestion that all people are cultural and live in cultural worlds acts to challenge members of culturally dominant groups as they tend to see their way of life as normal rather than cultural. Dominant group members usually talk about themselves in relation to their national identity (New Zealander, Australian, or American) rather than name being part of a cultural group within their nation state. This study, located in Aotearoa New Zealand, explores with a particular group of New Zealanders, how Pākehā who are members of the dominant group, may come to recognise themselves as being cultural, to name themselves culturally, and to mark aspects of their culture. The contribution that recognising culture makes to a decolonisation agenda is also explored. This study of Pākehā culture is approached from both a realist and a social constructionist perspective. Culture, an abstract concept, is largely theorised as a constructed notion in a historically structured location. How culture is recognised, and the ways it is produced and enacted, through relationships and interactions in the broader structures of New Zealand society were explored using realist thematic methods of analysis. Treaty people are a network of mostly Pākehā activist educators who have engaged in promoting knowledge of and support for Māori claims for justice under Te Tiriti o Waitangi (the Treaty of Waitangi was the document signed by Settlers and Māori leaders in 1840 to establish settlement arrangements). Treaty people are practised in talking about cultural issues largely through their engagement with Māori - Pākehā relationships. The research focused on the situations and processes that stimulated a group of thirty four ‘Treaty people’ to start thinking about themselves as cultural; about what it meant to have a cultural identity; and what they recognised as markers of their culture. I have been a member of this Treaty People network for many years and carry the dual positioning of being the researcher, and a participant, both as a member of the group and as a Pākehā. Data was collected over an eighteen month period from two focus groups in 2003 and 2005. These sessions were video and audio-recorded and later transcribed. I meet with available participants in their own locations early in 2005 and audio-recorded the conversations. The transcriptions and notes form the data for this study. My findings from this study include: • Culture was often first recognised through encounters with different cultural groups and usually when a person is in a situation where they are in a minority. Although, dominant group members do not always see their own daily practices and values as cultural they often name as cultural the practices and values of people different from them. • Recognising and naming ourselves as cultural and marking our culture were difficult tasks that go against the grain of dominance. • Pākehā culture was recognised in a number of ways. Treaty people recognised that there were other forms of knowing about the world and that dominant group members valued being ‘right’ and in control of knowledge. Coming to recognise themselves as cultural unsettled a sense of certainty about their position in the world, and opened up possibilities for new ways to engage in intercultural relationships where participation rather than being in control was valued. • Accepting the name Pākehā implied having a position of responsibility to tangata whenua and to the land. In turn those who have accepted being Pākehā receive a sense of belonging to Aotearoa and a place to stand in justice alongside Māori and other people who are culturally different from them. • While this thesis does not make explicit links between ‘being cultural’ and a decolonisation agenda the Treaty People participants named strategies to support decolonisation and challenge Pākehā dominance which include: recognising practices and values that are perpetuated through colonisation, in particular egalitarianism, assimilation and superiority; recognising Māori as tangata whenua (first people of the land) and Te Tiriti o Waitangi relationships; taking up the challenge to seek justice through striving to deal with past wrongs and to engage in equitable relationships with Māori. This thesis contributes to the psychology and social science literature as it serves to address the question “We don’t have a culture … do we?” I posit that all psychologists do have a culture and provide some rich descriptions, for those who are Pākehā, of how their culture may be recognised, how it might be described and talked about. This is a core cultural competency requirement for psychologists. My thesis also contribute to a growing body of literature from members of dominant groups, who are developing a discourse to explore and make visible their cultural or raced (whiteness) positions of power and privilege.

year: 2010