title: New Marine ΔR values for the South Pacific subtropical gyre region

authors: Petchey, Fiona

subjects: ΔR values

abstract: This paper presents 31 new ΔR results of known-age, pre-AD 1950 shells from the South Pacific subtropical gyre region, spanning from the Tuamotu Archipelago in the east to New Caledonia in the west. This doubles the number of available ΔR values for the Oceania region. These values indicate that the regional offset (ΔR) from the modeled radiocarbon marine age has remained relatively constant over the last 100 yr prior to 1950. Variation from the norm can be attributed to various influences including localized upwelling around islands, the presence of a hardwater effect, direct ingestion of old carbon by the live shellfish, or enhanced exchange with atmospheric CO2 as a consequence of photosynthetic activity or increased aeration.

text: New Marine ΔR values for the South Pacific subtropical gyre region This paper presents 31 new ΔR results of known-age, pre-AD 1950 shells from the South Pacific subtropical gyre region, spanning from the Tuamotu Archipelago in the east to New Caledonia in the west. This doubles the number of available ΔR values for the Oceania region. These values indicate that the regional offset (ΔR) from the modeled radiocarbon marine age has remained relatively constant over the last 100 yr prior to 1950. Variation from the norm can be attributed to various influences including localized upwelling around islands, the presence of a hardwater effect, direct ingestion of old carbon by the live shellfish, or enhanced exchange with atmospheric CO2 as a consequence of photosynthetic activity or increased aeration.

year: 2008

title: Is correspondence truth one or many?

authors: Ulatowski, Joseph W.

abstract: On the correspondence theory of truth, a proposition is true if and only if it corresponds to fact. Criticisms of the correspondence theory of truth have argued that such a strict interpretation of the correspondence relation will not be able to account for the truth of statements about fiction or mathematics. This challenge has resulted in the introduction of more permissive correspondence relations, such as Austin’s correspondence as correlation or Tarski’s correspondence as reference satisfaction. Recently, some mediated correspondence theorists of truth have proposed that the correspondence relation holds not only between thought and world but also between thought and language. In this paper, I argue that correspondence truth, direct or mediated, is not a monistic theory of truth, the view that there is one and only way for a proposition to be true. To argue for this position, I will have to show that each of the correspondence theories accept direct and indirect ways of understanding the correspondence relation as well as address potential objections to the view that correspondence theory is not singular and monolithic.

text: Is correspondence truth one or many? On the correspondence theory of truth, a proposition is true if and only if it corresponds to fact. Criticisms of the correspondence theory of truth have argued that such a strict interpretation of the correspondence relation will not be able to account for the truth of statements about fiction or mathematics. This challenge has resulted in the introduction of more permissive correspondence relations, such as Austin’s correspondence as correlation or Tarski’s correspondence as reference satisfaction. Recently, some mediated correspondence theorists of truth have proposed that the correspondence relation holds not only between thought and world but also between thought and language. In this paper, I argue that correspondence truth, direct or mediated, is not a monistic theory of truth, the view that there is one and only way for a proposition to be true. To argue for this position, I will have to show that each of the correspondence theories accept direct and indirect ways of understanding the correspondence relation as well as address potential objections to the view that correspondence theory is not singular and monolithic.

year: 2023-10-31

title: 'Thinking-through-Complicity' with Te Iwi o Ngāti Hauiti: Towards a Critical Use of Participatory Video for Research

authors: Kindon, Sara Louise

subjects: human geography

abstract: This thesis explores some of the seductions and dangers of participatory video for research (PVR) involving Indigenous Māori and Pākehā research partners. The project within which PVR was used focused on exploring relationships between place, identity and social cohesion within ‘remote’ rural communities. It involved about 15 members of the Potaka whānau of Te Iwi o Ngāti Hauiti in the central Rangitīkei district of the North Island, Aotearoa New Zealand. A small group of iwi members, myself and an audiovisual specialist and trainer negotiated the project’s focus, process and ethics during 1998. A different group of iwi members were then trained in video production and community research methods later that year and supported to produce their own productions, and carry out video research interviews with other iwi members. The entire process of negotiation, training and collaborative research was filmed for archival and research purposes with everyone’s consent, and several collaborative publications and presentations have been produced since 1999.

The discursive space opened up by Ngāti Hauiti’s engagement with, and use of, video provides an opportunity to attend to the ‘cultural mediations’ that occurred throughout the research partnership and to inquire into the possible ‘empire building effects’ of visual technologies within participatory research more generally. The focus on PVR within a Māori context also prompts questions about the visual’s transformative potential within geographic research, and the implications of working through the use of a visual medium for rethinking disciplinary practices and knowledges, particularly when working cross-culturally. 

In the thesis, I first review the evolution and attendant challenges associated with both the use of participation and video within research contexts. I trace their similar origins in modernist attempts to ‘know’ and ‘empower’ marginalised others, and highlight the ongoing marginalisation of Indigenous perspectives within mainstream debates. I then engage with conceptualisations of complicity and develop an analytical framework that expands on current discursive and ideological discussions to also attend to its material, embodied and spatial dimensions.

Using this framework and a complementary autoethnographic and ‘hyper-self-reflexive’ approach, I track aspects of my own power, complicity and desire within my research practice in the PVR project during the period 1998-2001. This approach involves the development of a particular reading position to focus on critical incidents of my research practice and a means of grappling productively with the polyvalent nature of my audiovisual and other information sources. I discuss these critical incidents within three processes associated with the research: facilitation, production and reception, attending to the complex and multifaceted interplay of audiovisual texts, their producers and their audiences throughout. 

Such a thesis is expedient given that powerful and often uncritical rhetoric that besets participatory research and development is fast taking hold within geography. It is also timely given the proliferation of affordable and accessible audiovisual technology and its increasing use within geography and other social sciences. As geographers respond to calls to embrace more visual, tactile and other methods, this thesis offers possibilities for the repoliticisation of participatory discourse within social geography, through a more considered engagement with participatory action research, Indigenous research practices and audiovisual media such as video. I offer cautionary insights into the ‘power-full’ effects of these ways of working.

text: 'Thinking-through-Complicity' with Te Iwi o Ngāti Hauiti: Towards a Critical Use of Participatory Video for Research This thesis explores some of the seductions and dangers of participatory video for research (PVR) involving Indigenous Māori and Pākehā research partners. The project within which PVR was used focused on exploring relationships between place, identity and social cohesion within ‘remote’ rural communities. It involved about 15 members of the Potaka whānau of Te Iwi o Ngāti Hauiti in the central Rangitīkei district of the North Island, Aotearoa New Zealand. A small group of iwi members, myself and an audiovisual specialist and trainer negotiated the project’s focus, process and ethics during 1998. A different group of iwi members were then trained in video production and community research methods later that year and supported to produce their own productions, and carry out video research interviews with other iwi members. The entire process of negotiation, training and collaborative research was filmed for archival and research purposes with everyone’s consent, and several collaborative publications and presentations have been produced since 1999.

The discursive space opened up by Ngāti Hauiti’s engagement with, and use of, video provides an opportunity to attend to the ‘cultural mediations’ that occurred throughout the research partnership and to inquire into the possible ‘empire building effects’ of visual technologies within participatory research more generally. The focus on PVR within a Māori context also prompts questions about the visual’s transformative potential within geographic research, and the implications of working through the use of a visual medium for rethinking disciplinary practices and knowledges, particularly when working cross-culturally. 

In the thesis, I first review the evolution and attendant challenges associated with both the use of participation and video within research contexts. I trace their similar origins in modernist attempts to ‘know’ and ‘empower’ marginalised others, and highlight the ongoing marginalisation of Indigenous perspectives within mainstream debates. I then engage with conceptualisations of complicity and develop an analytical framework that expands on current discursive and ideological discussions to also attend to its material, embodied and spatial dimensions.

Using this framework and a complementary autoethnographic and ‘hyper-self-reflexive’ approach, I track aspects of my own power, complicity and desire within my research practice in the PVR project during the period 1998-2001. This approach involves the development of a particular reading position to focus on critical incidents of my research practice and a means of grappling productively with the polyvalent nature of my audiovisual and other information sources. I discuss these critical incidents within three processes associated with the research: facilitation, production and reception, attending to the complex and multifaceted interplay of audiovisual texts, their producers and their audiences throughout. 

Such a thesis is expedient given that powerful and often uncritical rhetoric that besets participatory research and development is fast taking hold within geography. It is also timely given the proliferation of affordable and accessible audiovisual technology and its increasing use within geography and other social sciences. As geographers respond to calls to embrace more visual, tactile and other methods, this thesis offers possibilities for the repoliticisation of participatory discourse within social geography, through a more considered engagement with participatory action research, Indigenous research practices and audiovisual media such as video. I offer cautionary insights into the ‘power-full’ effects of these ways of working.

year: 2012