title: Towards a Theory of Postmodern Humour: South Park as carnivalesque postmodern narrative impulse

authors: Franklyn, Blair Scott

subjects: South Park

abstract: The philosopher Martin Heidegger describes humour as a response to human 'thrownness' in the world.  This thesis argues that there is a form of humour which can be usefully described as postmodern humour and that postmodern humour reflects the experience of being 'thrown' into postmodernity.  Postmodern humour responds to and references the fears, fixations, frameworks and technologies which underpin our postmodern existence.  It is further contended that South Park is an example of postmodern humour in the way that it exhibits a carnivalesque postmodern narrative impulse which attacks the meta-narrative style explanations of contemporary events, trends and fashions offered in the popular media. South Park's carnivalesque humour is a complex critique on a society in which television is a primary instrument of communication, a centre-piece to many people's lives, and a barometer of contemporary culture, while at the same time drawing attention to the fact that the medium being satirised is also used to perform the critique.  

A large portion of this thesis is devoted to examining and interrogating the discursive properties of humour as compared to seriousness, an endeavour which also establishes some interesting links to postmodern philosophical discourse.  This can be succinctly summarized by the following: 
1.	Humour is a form of discourse which simultaneously refers to two frames of reference, or associative contexts.  Therefore humour is a bissociative form of discourse.
2.	Seriousness is a form of discourse which relies on a singular associative context.
3.	The legally and socially instituted rules which govern everyday life use serious discourse as a matter of practical necessity.  
4.	Ambiguity, transgression and deviancy are problematic to serious discourse (and therefore the official culture in which it circulates), but conventions of humorous discourse.
5.	Humorous discourse then, challenges the singularity and totality of the official discourses which govern everyday life.  Subsequently, humour has been subjected to a variety of controls, most notably the 'policing the body' documented in the writings of Norbert Elias and Michel Foucault.   
6.	Humour can therefore be understood to function in a manner similar to Jean-Fran ois Lyotard's concept of little-narrative's, which destabilize the totality of official meta-narratives. 

Furthermore, this thesis proposes strong links between the oppositional practices of the medieval carnival, as outlined by Mikhail Bakhtin, and the produced-for-mass-consumption humour of South Park.  However, it also demonstrates that although South Park embodies the oppositional spirit of the carnival, it lacks its fundamentally social nature, and therefore lacks its politically resistant potency.  More specifically it is argued that the development and prevalence of technologies such as television, video/DVD, and the internet, allows us to access humour at any time we wish. However, this temporal freedom is contrasted by the spatial constraints inherent in these communication/media technologies.  Rather than officially sanctioned times and places for carnivalesque social gatherings, today, individuals have the 'liberty' of free (private) access to carnivalesque media texts, which simultaneously help to restrict the freedom of social contact that the carnival used to afford.  Further to this, it is argued that the fact that South Park, with its explicit derision of authority, is allowed to circulate through mainstream media at all, implies asymmetric conservative action on the part of officialdom.  In this sense it is argued that postmodern humour such as South Park is allowed to circulate because the act of watching/consuming the programme also acts as a deterrent to actual radical activity.

text: Towards a Theory of Postmodern Humour: South Park as carnivalesque postmodern narrative impulse The philosopher Martin Heidegger describes humour as a response to human 'thrownness' in the world.  This thesis argues that there is a form of humour which can be usefully described as postmodern humour and that postmodern humour reflects the experience of being 'thrown' into postmodernity.  Postmodern humour responds to and references the fears, fixations, frameworks and technologies which underpin our postmodern existence.  It is further contended that South Park is an example of postmodern humour in the way that it exhibits a carnivalesque postmodern narrative impulse which attacks the meta-narrative style explanations of contemporary events, trends and fashions offered in the popular media. South Park's carnivalesque humour is a complex critique on a society in which television is a primary instrument of communication, a centre-piece to many people's lives, and a barometer of contemporary culture, while at the same time drawing attention to the fact that the medium being satirised is also used to perform the critique.  

A large portion of this thesis is devoted to examining and interrogating the discursive properties of humour as compared to seriousness, an endeavour which also establishes some interesting links to postmodern philosophical discourse.  This can be succinctly summarized by the following: 
1.	Humour is a form of discourse which simultaneously refers to two frames of reference, or associative contexts.  Therefore humour is a bissociative form of discourse.
2.	Seriousness is a form of discourse which relies on a singular associative context.
3.	The legally and socially instituted rules which govern everyday life use serious discourse as a matter of practical necessity.  
4.	Ambiguity, transgression and deviancy are problematic to serious discourse (and therefore the official culture in which it circulates), but conventions of humorous discourse.
5.	Humorous discourse then, challenges the singularity and totality of the official discourses which govern everyday life.  Subsequently, humour has been subjected to a variety of controls, most notably the 'policing the body' documented in the writings of Norbert Elias and Michel Foucault.   
6.	Humour can therefore be understood to function in a manner similar to Jean-Fran ois Lyotard's concept of little-narrative's, which destabilize the totality of official meta-narratives. 

Furthermore, this thesis proposes strong links between the oppositional practices of the medieval carnival, as outlined by Mikhail Bakhtin, and the produced-for-mass-consumption humour of South Park.  However, it also demonstrates that although South Park embodies the oppositional spirit of the carnival, it lacks its fundamentally social nature, and therefore lacks its politically resistant potency.  More specifically it is argued that the development and prevalence of technologies such as television, video/DVD, and the internet, allows us to access humour at any time we wish. However, this temporal freedom is contrasted by the spatial constraints inherent in these communication/media technologies.  Rather than officially sanctioned times and places for carnivalesque social gatherings, today, individuals have the 'liberty' of free (private) access to carnivalesque media texts, which simultaneously help to restrict the freedom of social contact that the carnival used to afford.  Further to this, it is argued that the fact that South Park, with its explicit derision of authority, is allowed to circulate through mainstream media at all, implies asymmetric conservative action on the part of officialdom.  In this sense it is argued that postmodern humour such as South Park is allowed to circulate because the act of watching/consuming the programme also acts as a deterrent to actual radical activity.

year: 2006

title: Peat soil properties and seasonal surface elevation changes of drained Waikato peatlands

authors: Layton, Helena Georgette

subjects: Peat soils

abstract: Peat surface oscillation (PSO) is the elastic seasonal change in peatland surface elevation that occurs as a response to changes in the water balance, and is an important self-regulating behaviour for sustaining hydrological functioning of intact peatlands. Drainage of peatlands leads to subsidence caused by peat consolidation, shrinkage and oxidation, which results in a non-reversible lowering of the peat surface. In the Waikato, 80% of peatlands have been drained and are now under agricultural and horticultural land uses, with subsidence rates around 20 mm y-1. Ongoing monitoring of subsidence is challenged by a lack of knowledge of PSO behaviour. This study is the first of its kind to investigate PSO in drained peatlands at a regional scale. 

This study investigated peat properties and hydrological and PSO regimes of the eleven study sites that comprise a Waikato regional drained peatland monitoring. These sites were under three different land uses, being dairy and dry stock farms, and blueberry orchards. Peat soil physical and chemical properties were used to determine the effect land use has on both peat soil properties and PSO. PSO was measured using the paired pressure transducer method and soil cores were taken from each site to measure bulk density, volumetric moisture content (VMC), porosity, shrinkage characteristics, carbon to nitrogen ratios (C/N), organic matter fractions (OMf), with additional grab samples taken for pH analysis. 

There were general trends of decreasing pH and bulk density, and increasing porosity, C/N and OMf with increasing depth. The agricultural sites (dairy and dry stock) had greater degradation than the blueberry sites in the near surface peat but there was less of a difference in peat properties between land uses deeper in the profile. All of the study sites had higher bulk densities, and lower porosities and OMf than commonly reported in intact peatlands. These results show that land management can have a major effect on near surface peat properties and can degrade peat further than just drainage alone. 

Reversible surface elevation changes were observed at all study sites, which followed a similar seasonal pattern but with different magnitudes of shrink and swell. There did not appear to be a relationship between land use or drainage history and magnitude of PSO. Although the seasonal surface elevation changes broadly followed changes in water table depth, there did not appear to be an association between magnitude of surface elevation change and depth to the water table, in contrast to PSO studies in wetlands. The magnitude of PSO was reduced at the majority of the sites compared to previous measurements in intact peatlands, but some sites were relatively large compared to international studies of drained peatlands. There was some evidence that subsidence was occurring at all of the study sites. The results of this study have provided more detail than previously given in the literature for short-term, seasonal and annual PSO regimes. 

Overall, this study found that PSO in drained peatlands is highly variable and the drivers of PSO are likely very complex. These results can be used to help further improve long-term monitoring of peat subsidence demonstrate the importance of high-resolution measurements for accurate monitoring of annual PSO cycles.

text: Peat soil properties and seasonal surface elevation changes of drained Waikato peatlands Peat surface oscillation (PSO) is the elastic seasonal change in peatland surface elevation that occurs as a response to changes in the water balance, and is an important self-regulating behaviour for sustaining hydrological functioning of intact peatlands. Drainage of peatlands leads to subsidence caused by peat consolidation, shrinkage and oxidation, which results in a non-reversible lowering of the peat surface. In the Waikato, 80% of peatlands have been drained and are now under agricultural and horticultural land uses, with subsidence rates around 20 mm y-1. Ongoing monitoring of subsidence is challenged by a lack of knowledge of PSO behaviour. This study is the first of its kind to investigate PSO in drained peatlands at a regional scale. 

This study investigated peat properties and hydrological and PSO regimes of the eleven study sites that comprise a Waikato regional drained peatland monitoring. These sites were under three different land uses, being dairy and dry stock farms, and blueberry orchards. Peat soil physical and chemical properties were used to determine the effect land use has on both peat soil properties and PSO. PSO was measured using the paired pressure transducer method and soil cores were taken from each site to measure bulk density, volumetric moisture content (VMC), porosity, shrinkage characteristics, carbon to nitrogen ratios (C/N), organic matter fractions (OMf), with additional grab samples taken for pH analysis. 

There were general trends of decreasing pH and bulk density, and increasing porosity, C/N and OMf with increasing depth. The agricultural sites (dairy and dry stock) had greater degradation than the blueberry sites in the near surface peat but there was less of a difference in peat properties between land uses deeper in the profile. All of the study sites had higher bulk densities, and lower porosities and OMf than commonly reported in intact peatlands. These results show that land management can have a major effect on near surface peat properties and can degrade peat further than just drainage alone. 

Reversible surface elevation changes were observed at all study sites, which followed a similar seasonal pattern but with different magnitudes of shrink and swell. There did not appear to be a relationship between land use or drainage history and magnitude of PSO. Although the seasonal surface elevation changes broadly followed changes in water table depth, there did not appear to be an association between magnitude of surface elevation change and depth to the water table, in contrast to PSO studies in wetlands. The magnitude of PSO was reduced at the majority of the sites compared to previous measurements in intact peatlands, but some sites were relatively large compared to international studies of drained peatlands. There was some evidence that subsidence was occurring at all of the study sites. The results of this study have provided more detail than previously given in the literature for short-term, seasonal and annual PSO regimes. 

Overall, this study found that PSO in drained peatlands is highly variable and the drivers of PSO are likely very complex. These results can be used to help further improve long-term monitoring of peat subsidence demonstrate the importance of high-resolution measurements for accurate monitoring of annual PSO cycles.

year: 2022

title: Hōmai te Waiora ki Ahau: te ara whakamua - towards the establishment of construct validity

authors: Palmer, Stephanie

abstract: Hōmai te Waiora ki Ahau: te ara
whakamua, is about the development of a
tool to measure psychological wellbeing
among Māori. Why is it relevant? Because
a quick look at the June 2002 edition of
New Zealand’s Journal of Psychology will
show you that the wellbeing measures
being used in this country are not responsive to the needs of
Māori, are not based on Māori concepts or
Constructs, do not facilitate Māori participation in
te ao Māori and do not provide pathways through
which Māori can develop a positive Māori
identity.
It is highly unlikely that the tools
which psychologists use to measure
wellbeing among Māori will help Māori to
experience whānau ora and that, as we all
know, is the paramount health objective for
Māori (Ministry of Health, 2002). In this
regard, it would seem that the powers that
be in psychology are failing to meet their
Treaty obligations to Māori. Therefore,
Hōmai te Waiora ki Ahau simply aims to assist change. This presentation will briefly
describe the context of the development of
this measure, the methodologies used to
develop this tool, the outcomes of a small
pilot-study, and current challenges and
future directions for Hōmai te Waiora ki
Ahau.

text: Hōmai te Waiora ki Ahau: te ara whakamua - towards the establishment of construct validity Hōmai te Waiora ki Ahau: te ara
whakamua, is about the development of a
tool to measure psychological wellbeing
among Māori. Why is it relevant? Because
a quick look at the June 2002 edition of
New Zealand’s Journal of Psychology will
show you that the wellbeing measures
being used in this country are not responsive to the needs of
Māori, are not based on Māori concepts or
Constructs, do not facilitate Māori participation in
te ao Māori and do not provide pathways through
which Māori can develop a positive Māori
identity.
It is highly unlikely that the tools
which psychologists use to measure
wellbeing among Māori will help Māori to
experience whānau ora and that, as we all
know, is the paramount health objective for
Māori (Ministry of Health, 2002). In this
regard, it would seem that the powers that
be in psychology are failing to meet their
Treaty obligations to Māori. Therefore,
Hōmai te Waiora ki Ahau simply aims to assist change. This presentation will briefly
describe the context of the development of
this measure, the methodologies used to
develop this tool, the outcomes of a small
pilot-study, and current challenges and
future directions for Hōmai te Waiora ki
Ahau.

year: 2003