title: Creative practices as research:  Exploring the sensory world of visually impaired artists in China

authors: Ma, Yuan

abstract: This research focuses on non-visual artistic collaborative practice between artists with visual impairment in China and a sighted researcher, encompassing multi-sensory creative practices, including non-visual photography, improvised music, dance, and installation art. A mixed-methods approach integrating qualitative methods (collaborative art practices, semi-structured interviews) and quantitative analysis of audience survey data was employed to ensure a comprehensive understanding of the research phenomena. The resulting data were analysed using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA), Reflexive Thematic Analysis (RTA), and Descriptive Statistical Analysis (DSA) to systematically examine the role of embodied perception and spatial awareness in artistic expression. Further attention was given to how artists constructed meaning and created a sense of place through sensory interaction. The researcher engaged in the collaborative process through multiple roles – academic, practitioner, and curator – undertaking sustained reflexive inquiry to analyse the mechanisms of multi-sensory creation and cognitive transformation.
Through collaborative art practices and exhibitions carried out in both China and New Zealand, the study illuminated the dynamic function of embodied difference in multi-sensory collaborative practice, critically challenging visual-centric aesthetic norms and dominant assumptions about creative practices. Critical Disability Studies (CDS) and Crip theory provide robust theoretical foundations for understanding disability experiences. CDS focuses on critiques of social structures, while Crip theory emphasises the deconstruction of marginalised bodies. Despite their complementary insights, these two frameworks are frequently used separately in existing research. Dialogue and intertextual engagement between CDS and Crip theory show certain limitations and remain somewhat underdeveloped. Meanwhile, most current studies concentrate on theoretical development. In contrast, their practical application, especially in artistic creation, embodied creative practices, and cross-cultural collaborative art, remains underexplored. This research integrates both CDS and Crip theory to examine how multi-sensory artistic practices can challenge normative assumptions about perception, disability, and authorship. These frameworks are applied to analyse collaborative processes, audience responses, and curatorial strategies, highlighting how disability is both culturally constructed and generatively embodied.
At the theoretical level, the study employed a phenomenological perspective to emphasise how individuals construct unique perceptual pathways through sustained embodied interaction with their environment. This orientation resonated strongly with traditional Chinese Daoist philosophy, particularly the principles of natural spontaneity and Wu-Wei (Hansen, 2024), which emphasise harmony between body and world. Daoist thought values the fluidity of bodily interaction with nature, immediate perception, and holistic awareness, paralleling phenomenology’s concern with embodied experience and the lifeworld. A convergence of these two philosophical traditions was articulated in the research, offering an intercultural theoretical foundation for understanding how artists with visual impairment create art through non-visual sensory modes. This fusion of Eastern and Western thought expanded phenomenology’s applicability in sensory studies and opened a critically grounded, locally situated space for disability arts research.
The findings revealed a diversity of perceptual strategies and creative capacities among the Chinese artists with visual impairment. Across the four art forms, distinct sensory pathways were activated through non-visual means. In non-visual photography, artists constructed spatial understanding by combining auditory cues, tactile exploration, and imaginative perception. Improvised dance revealed how bodily movement attuned to environmental affordances could open alternative channels of sensation. In musical improvisation, layered sound and embodied rhythm emerged through muscle memory and somatic responsiveness. Installation art, meanwhile, engaged audiences through the tactile qualities of materials, inviting sensory exploration beyond sight. These practices underscored the centrality of non-visual senses in creative work and redefined the boundaries of artistic expression, contributing to a theoretically grounded and socially relevant framework for non-visual art research.

text: Creative practices as research:  Exploring the sensory world of visually impaired artists in China This research focuses on non-visual artistic collaborative practice between artists with visual impairment in China and a sighted researcher, encompassing multi-sensory creative practices, including non-visual photography, improvised music, dance, and installation art. A mixed-methods approach integrating qualitative methods (collaborative art practices, semi-structured interviews) and quantitative analysis of audience survey data was employed to ensure a comprehensive understanding of the research phenomena. The resulting data were analysed using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA), Reflexive Thematic Analysis (RTA), and Descriptive Statistical Analysis (DSA) to systematically examine the role of embodied perception and spatial awareness in artistic expression. Further attention was given to how artists constructed meaning and created a sense of place through sensory interaction. The researcher engaged in the collaborative process through multiple roles – academic, practitioner, and curator – undertaking sustained reflexive inquiry to analyse the mechanisms of multi-sensory creation and cognitive transformation.
Through collaborative art practices and exhibitions carried out in both China and New Zealand, the study illuminated the dynamic function of embodied difference in multi-sensory collaborative practice, critically challenging visual-centric aesthetic norms and dominant assumptions about creative practices. Critical Disability Studies (CDS) and Crip theory provide robust theoretical foundations for understanding disability experiences. CDS focuses on critiques of social structures, while Crip theory emphasises the deconstruction of marginalised bodies. Despite their complementary insights, these two frameworks are frequently used separately in existing research. Dialogue and intertextual engagement between CDS and Crip theory show certain limitations and remain somewhat underdeveloped. Meanwhile, most current studies concentrate on theoretical development. In contrast, their practical application, especially in artistic creation, embodied creative practices, and cross-cultural collaborative art, remains underexplored. This research integrates both CDS and Crip theory to examine how multi-sensory artistic practices can challenge normative assumptions about perception, disability, and authorship. These frameworks are applied to analyse collaborative processes, audience responses, and curatorial strategies, highlighting how disability is both culturally constructed and generatively embodied.
At the theoretical level, the study employed a phenomenological perspective to emphasise how individuals construct unique perceptual pathways through sustained embodied interaction with their environment. This orientation resonated strongly with traditional Chinese Daoist philosophy, particularly the principles of natural spontaneity and Wu-Wei (Hansen, 2024), which emphasise harmony between body and world. Daoist thought values the fluidity of bodily interaction with nature, immediate perception, and holistic awareness, paralleling phenomenology’s concern with embodied experience and the lifeworld. A convergence of these two philosophical traditions was articulated in the research, offering an intercultural theoretical foundation for understanding how artists with visual impairment create art through non-visual sensory modes. This fusion of Eastern and Western thought expanded phenomenology’s applicability in sensory studies and opened a critically grounded, locally situated space for disability arts research.
The findings revealed a diversity of perceptual strategies and creative capacities among the Chinese artists with visual impairment. Across the four art forms, distinct sensory pathways were activated through non-visual means. In non-visual photography, artists constructed spatial understanding by combining auditory cues, tactile exploration, and imaginative perception. Improvised dance revealed how bodily movement attuned to environmental affordances could open alternative channels of sensation. In musical improvisation, layered sound and embodied rhythm emerged through muscle memory and somatic responsiveness. Installation art, meanwhile, engaged audiences through the tactile qualities of materials, inviting sensory exploration beyond sight. These practices underscored the centrality of non-visual senses in creative work and redefined the boundaries of artistic expression, contributing to a theoretically grounded and socially relevant framework for non-visual art research.

year: 2026

title: Teachers' experiences in curriculum implementation: General curriculum, mathematics and technology

authors: McGee, Clive

subjects: New Zealand

abstract: This report is part of the New Zealand Ministry of Education research project Curriculum Stocktake: National School Sampling Study. The major content of this report is the administration and results of three questionnaires designed to investigate teachers' experiences in teaching from the New Zealand national curriculum documents; the drawing up of a 10% sample of New Zealand primary and secondary schools; and the summarisation of the results from the responses. The three questionnaires were first, a general questionnaire about curriculum; second, one on the mathematics curriculum documents; and third, one on the technology curriculum documents.

text: Teachers' experiences in curriculum implementation: General curriculum, mathematics and technology This report is part of the New Zealand Ministry of Education research project Curriculum Stocktake: National School Sampling Study. The major content of this report is the administration and results of three questionnaires designed to investigate teachers' experiences in teaching from the New Zealand national curriculum documents; the drawing up of a 10% sample of New Zealand primary and secondary schools; and the summarisation of the results from the responses. The three questionnaires were first, a general questionnaire about curriculum; second, one on the mathematics curriculum documents; and third, one on the technology curriculum documents.

year: 2001

title: Ngā niho tēte o Pekehāua: An indigenous articulation of governance

authors: Mahuika, Rangimarie

subjects: Indigenous Governance

abstract: This thesis originally set out to examine the structures and models available within New Zealand for a post-settlement tribal governance framework that would meet the Office of Treaty Settlements requirements while empowering the needs and aspirations of Ngāti Rangiwewehi. During the course of the study, as a result of the fast-tracking of our tribal settlement this emphasis changed. With Ngāti Rangiwewehi electing to utilise the government recommended templates for the post-settlement entity, the research shifted to consider the evolution of governance within the tribe, looking at the ways tribal governance had developed from traditional practices to our current governance frameworks. It was anticipated that gaining a deeper understanding of the factors that have shaped and influenced our governance would also give us the necessary insights to adapt the Crown model the tribe had adopted to ensure it was able to meet Ngāti Rangiwewehi’s future aspirations. This belief was grounded in an understanding that prior to the arrival of Pākehā to Aotearoa/New Zealand Ngāti Rangiwewehi, along with all other iwi Māori, had their own systems of Governance. Our governance frameworks, encapsulated within our tikanga and kawa, operated to produce a strong, vibrant, and self-determining society. Through colonisation, and its imposed Western frameworks for governance within Aotearoa New Zealand, traditional Māori frameworks for law and governance were undermined, deconstructed, or marginalised to make way for the civilizing discourses and structures of the Settler, as enforced by the British Crown. Although the dominant system of law and frameworks for governance may have changed, Ngāti Rangiwewehi and Māori desires for self-determination have not.
Against this background the central question of this study has itself evolved, initially contemplating to what extent Ngāti Rangiwewehi might be able to remain self-determining in and through their post-settlement governance arrangements. The overwhelming conclusion the study could not avoid was that any governance approach drawn from the settler-colonial Eurocentric system currently dominant in New Zealand would be incapable of supporting tribal aspirations for self-determination. What was equally evident was the continued determination that the tribe, collectively and individually, maintained to mediate the imposed governance frameworks that interfere in our ability to fully exercise our tino rangatiratanga, or in our iwi-specific context, our tino Rangiwewehitanga. This observation led to the final iteration of the thesis question which asks what frameworks for governance would best empower Ngāti Rangiwewehi to be self-determining in and beyond this post-settlement governance era? Throughout the research what became apparent was the potential to utilise our traditional frameworks for governance, described and encapsulated within this study as Rangiwewehitanga, a decolonial paradigm for tribal governance. Viewed in this way, Rangiwewehitanga expands our understanding of governance beyond the limited perspectives imposed through colonization and requires our people to recognise and return to the wisdom of our ancestral teachings to craft the most appropriate pathways forward.

text: Ngā niho tēte o Pekehāua: An indigenous articulation of governance This thesis originally set out to examine the structures and models available within New Zealand for a post-settlement tribal governance framework that would meet the Office of Treaty Settlements requirements while empowering the needs and aspirations of Ngāti Rangiwewehi. During the course of the study, as a result of the fast-tracking of our tribal settlement this emphasis changed. With Ngāti Rangiwewehi electing to utilise the government recommended templates for the post-settlement entity, the research shifted to consider the evolution of governance within the tribe, looking at the ways tribal governance had developed from traditional practices to our current governance frameworks. It was anticipated that gaining a deeper understanding of the factors that have shaped and influenced our governance would also give us the necessary insights to adapt the Crown model the tribe had adopted to ensure it was able to meet Ngāti Rangiwewehi’s future aspirations. This belief was grounded in an understanding that prior to the arrival of Pākehā to Aotearoa/New Zealand Ngāti Rangiwewehi, along with all other iwi Māori, had their own systems of Governance. Our governance frameworks, encapsulated within our tikanga and kawa, operated to produce a strong, vibrant, and self-determining society. Through colonisation, and its imposed Western frameworks for governance within Aotearoa New Zealand, traditional Māori frameworks for law and governance were undermined, deconstructed, or marginalised to make way for the civilizing discourses and structures of the Settler, as enforced by the British Crown. Although the dominant system of law and frameworks for governance may have changed, Ngāti Rangiwewehi and Māori desires for self-determination have not.
Against this background the central question of this study has itself evolved, initially contemplating to what extent Ngāti Rangiwewehi might be able to remain self-determining in and through their post-settlement governance arrangements. The overwhelming conclusion the study could not avoid was that any governance approach drawn from the settler-colonial Eurocentric system currently dominant in New Zealand would be incapable of supporting tribal aspirations for self-determination. What was equally evident was the continued determination that the tribe, collectively and individually, maintained to mediate the imposed governance frameworks that interfere in our ability to fully exercise our tino rangatiratanga, or in our iwi-specific context, our tino Rangiwewehitanga. This observation led to the final iteration of the thesis question which asks what frameworks for governance would best empower Ngāti Rangiwewehi to be self-determining in and beyond this post-settlement governance era? Throughout the research what became apparent was the potential to utilise our traditional frameworks for governance, described and encapsulated within this study as Rangiwewehitanga, a decolonial paradigm for tribal governance. Viewed in this way, Rangiwewehitanga expands our understanding of governance beyond the limited perspectives imposed through colonization and requires our people to recognise and return to the wisdom of our ancestral teachings to craft the most appropriate pathways forward.

year: 2019