title: Negotiating Noise in the Home

authors: Beere, Paul

subjects: Noise

abstract: Thinking about how to visually observe space and place has long been central to the theory and practice of geographic enquiry. This preoccupation with vision is by no means isolated to geography, and is embedded in the Western privileging of sight as the primary source of knowledge acquisition. Researchers who have sensed the effect that the ‘myopic’ Western sensorium has had on geographic knowledges are engaging more nuanced approaches which acknowledge that the production of places and spaces is multi-sensory. Such perspectives open up new ways to explore the embodied, emotional, and sensuous production of space. With home at the nexus, this thesis contributes to critical geographic thought by exploring the ways in which the senses mediate socio-spatial power relations. In particular, the analysis centres on how experiences of abject and taboo noises affect the production and maintenance of bodies, identities, and spaces. Within a qualitative, poststructuralist approach, I move beyond Foucault’s panoptic surveillant gaze to instead listen to the disciplinary effects of listening and hearing. Feminist discourses of embodiment and gender, Kristeva’s conceptualisation of abjection, and Eliasian notions of manners and etiquette are drawn on to help flesh out the disciplining effects of aurality.
Twenty individual and four couple semi-structured in-depth interviews with people living in and around Hamilton, New Zealand, are drawn on to explore the means employed to negotiate abject noises. Attention is paid to how these strategies shape, and are shaped by, expectations of self-discipline and bodily comportment. Dominant narratives that emerged relating to the transgressive experience of noises from sexual activity, toileting, and domestic violence problematise the tendency of the (privileged) Western gaze to fix identity and meaning to boundaries and scales. Revulsion, fascination, imagery, ‘dirt’, and other non-aural phenomena, which abject noises readily communicate across partitioned spaces, suggest that listening and hearing do not happen in isolation. The sensory cross-talk invoked by abjection serves to expose the partiality of the Western five discrete senses model, and affects an ontological and epistemological rethink of how geographers engage with the world.
Moving beyond the traditional Western geographic paradigm, I employ sensuous and emotions scholarship from multiple disciplines to offer new ways to understand constructions of corporeal and domicile privacy, discourses which dominate the politics of abject noises in the home. Acknowledging that exposure to abject noises is not uniform across social strata, gender, class, ethnicity, and age are incorporated into the analysis of the flow of power within the socio-spatial experience of abjection. Various cultural sensoria are drawn on to sound out how, through the transgression of bodily and domicile boundaries, abject noises cause the subject and space to leak into each other, and into other bodies. In doing so, I contribute to critical geographies that position the relationship between bodies and place as mutually constitutive.

text: Negotiating Noise in the Home Thinking about how to visually observe space and place has long been central to the theory and practice of geographic enquiry. This preoccupation with vision is by no means isolated to geography, and is embedded in the Western privileging of sight as the primary source of knowledge acquisition. Researchers who have sensed the effect that the ‘myopic’ Western sensorium has had on geographic knowledges are engaging more nuanced approaches which acknowledge that the production of places and spaces is multi-sensory. Such perspectives open up new ways to explore the embodied, emotional, and sensuous production of space. With home at the nexus, this thesis contributes to critical geographic thought by exploring the ways in which the senses mediate socio-spatial power relations. In particular, the analysis centres on how experiences of abject and taboo noises affect the production and maintenance of bodies, identities, and spaces. Within a qualitative, poststructuralist approach, I move beyond Foucault’s panoptic surveillant gaze to instead listen to the disciplinary effects of listening and hearing. Feminist discourses of embodiment and gender, Kristeva’s conceptualisation of abjection, and Eliasian notions of manners and etiquette are drawn on to help flesh out the disciplining effects of aurality.
Twenty individual and four couple semi-structured in-depth interviews with people living in and around Hamilton, New Zealand, are drawn on to explore the means employed to negotiate abject noises. Attention is paid to how these strategies shape, and are shaped by, expectations of self-discipline and bodily comportment. Dominant narratives that emerged relating to the transgressive experience of noises from sexual activity, toileting, and domestic violence problematise the tendency of the (privileged) Western gaze to fix identity and meaning to boundaries and scales. Revulsion, fascination, imagery, ‘dirt’, and other non-aural phenomena, which abject noises readily communicate across partitioned spaces, suggest that listening and hearing do not happen in isolation. The sensory cross-talk invoked by abjection serves to expose the partiality of the Western five discrete senses model, and affects an ontological and epistemological rethink of how geographers engage with the world.
Moving beyond the traditional Western geographic paradigm, I employ sensuous and emotions scholarship from multiple disciplines to offer new ways to understand constructions of corporeal and domicile privacy, discourses which dominate the politics of abject noises in the home. Acknowledging that exposure to abject noises is not uniform across social strata, gender, class, ethnicity, and age are incorporated into the analysis of the flow of power within the socio-spatial experience of abjection. Various cultural sensoria are drawn on to sound out how, through the transgression of bodily and domicile boundaries, abject noises cause the subject and space to leak into each other, and into other bodies. In doing so, I contribute to critical geographies that position the relationship between bodies and place as mutually constitutive.

year: 2014

title: Fifteenth century earth science

authors: Stokes, Evelyn

abstract: The earth science content of two late medieval encyclopedias, the Mirrour of the World and Higden's Polychronicon, both printed by William Caxton in the 1480's, is examined in relation to fifteenth century ideas about the physical nature of the earth and the universe. Such topics as the four elements, the earth and the spheres, location of Hell and Paradise, the arrangement of , continents and oceans, the unity of waters, earthquakes and volcanoes, erosion, fossils and mountain building, climatic zones and weather phenomena are summarized and reference made to the Biblical and Classical Greek sources of these ideas.

text: Fifteenth century earth science The earth science content of two late medieval encyclopedias, the Mirrour of the World and Higden's Polychronicon, both printed by William Caxton in the 1480's, is examined in relation to fifteenth century ideas about the physical nature of the earth and the universe. Such topics as the four elements, the earth and the spheres, location of Hell and Paradise, the arrangement of , continents and oceans, the unity of waters, earthquakes and volcanoes, erosion, fossils and mountain building, climatic zones and weather phenomena are summarized and reference made to the Biblical and Classical Greek sources of these ideas.

year: 1967

title: 'Te Kawau Mārō' The Role of Media in Revitalising Te Reo Māori

authors: Hill, Jessie Lee Anahira

subjects: Media

abstract: The intent of this thesis is to investigate the role media plays in relation to the revitalisation of te reo Māori in Aotearoa/New Zealand society. This is essential as the media's latent potential is often underestimated and therefore underutilised. 

For Māori and inevitably te reo Māori, media has been a topic of heated contestation for over a century. It is postulated that throughout this troubled history, media's influence has contributed to an erosion of te reo Māori and then conversely, since the late 20th century, its attempted revival. The journey of te reo Māori from past to present may be likened to a voyage of a traditional 'waka hourua' (voyaging or double hulled canoe). 'Nga ngaru e toru' ('three waves') illustrates the three stages that I have defined as catalysts significantly impacting te reo Māori. 

Grounded firmly in a Kaupapa Māori methodological and theoretical framework based on careful research and intimate cultural knowledge, my innovative approaches to language revitalisation entitled the Tapatoru (triangle) Model 1 and Tapatoru Model 2 will be introduced and explained. These distinct language revitalisation paradigms illustrate the core ingredients needed in effective language revival and illustrate the positioning and function of the media within these strategic models.

text: 'Te Kawau Mārō' The Role of Media in Revitalising Te Reo Māori The intent of this thesis is to investigate the role media plays in relation to the revitalisation of te reo Māori in Aotearoa/New Zealand society. This is essential as the media's latent potential is often underestimated and therefore underutilised. 

For Māori and inevitably te reo Māori, media has been a topic of heated contestation for over a century. It is postulated that throughout this troubled history, media's influence has contributed to an erosion of te reo Māori and then conversely, since the late 20th century, its attempted revival. The journey of te reo Māori from past to present may be likened to a voyage of a traditional 'waka hourua' (voyaging or double hulled canoe). 'Nga ngaru e toru' ('three waves') illustrates the three stages that I have defined as catalysts significantly impacting te reo Māori. 

Grounded firmly in a Kaupapa Māori methodological and theoretical framework based on careful research and intimate cultural knowledge, my innovative approaches to language revitalisation entitled the Tapatoru (triangle) Model 1 and Tapatoru Model 2 will be introduced and explained. These distinct language revitalisation paradigms illustrate the core ingredients needed in effective language revival and illustrate the positioning and function of the media within these strategic models.

year: 2010