title: Introduction to giftedness and talent: Australasian perspectives.

authors: Ballam, Nadine Dawn

abstract: The impetus for this book was a desire to make contemporary research more accessible to those with an interest in giftedness and talent; policymakers, re-searchers, students, practitioners, parents and gifted individuals themselves. The end product of doctoral research has traditionally been a large thesis that sits on either a physical or virtual ‘shelf’. This work may not often be accessed or read by people with increasingly busy lives or, worse still, those who would be interested in this work may never have any knowledge of its existence. With this in mind, we have endeavoured to present the authors’ doctoral research in a format that is readily available and showcases recent work in the area of giftedness and talent. In an era of limited official support for gifted education in Australia and New Zealand, it seems fitting to acknowledge some of the val-uable work that many are contributing to this field. It is promising to note a re-cent upsurge in doctoral theses in this field where, internationally, there has not been a tradition of robust, quality-assured research. Each one of the in-depth studies presented in this book has been defended before and examined by a panel of expert peer reviewers.

text: Introduction to giftedness and talent: Australasian perspectives. The impetus for this book was a desire to make contemporary research more accessible to those with an interest in giftedness and talent; policymakers, re-searchers, students, practitioners, parents and gifted individuals themselves. The end product of doctoral research has traditionally been a large thesis that sits on either a physical or virtual ‘shelf’. This work may not often be accessed or read by people with increasingly busy lives or, worse still, those who would be interested in this work may never have any knowledge of its existence. With this in mind, we have endeavoured to present the authors’ doctoral research in a format that is readily available and showcases recent work in the area of giftedness and talent. In an era of limited official support for gifted education in Australia and New Zealand, it seems fitting to acknowledge some of the val-uable work that many are contributing to this field. It is promising to note a re-cent upsurge in doctoral theses in this field where, internationally, there has not been a tradition of robust, quality-assured research. Each one of the in-depth studies presented in this book has been defended before and examined by a panel of expert peer reviewers.

year: 2017

title: Scott Base Redevelopment CEE environmental monitoring report: Year one (January 2019)

authors: O'Neill, Tanya Ann

abstract: An understanding of the soils and the underlying permafrost surrounding Scott Base is important to detect impacts of environmental change or human activities, such as the redevelopment of Scott Base, on the unique soil communities and on geomorphological processes. The Scott Base Redevelopment (SBR) is the largest project ever undertaken by New Zealand in Antarctica. It is a requirement of the Environmental Protocol to the Antarctic Treaty and New Zealand's Antarctica (Environmental Protection) Act (1994) that an environmental impact assessment be completed prior to any activity taking place in Antarctica. A Comprehensive Environmental Evaluation (CEE) of the project is being completed in order to support decision-making with an assessment of predicted environmental impacts linked with the redevelopment. A comprehensive monitoring programme was set up to verify the accuracy of the environmental impact assessment presented in the CEE and to detect unforeseen impacts or impacts that are more significant than expected.
The soil monitoring sites were established in January 2019 to assess current levels of biodiversity and abundance of invertebrates and microbial communities, along with soil chemical characteristics, and visual characteristics within the wider Scott Base redevelopment area. These 25 soil monitoring plots establish a baseline against which future changes can be detected. My role in the project was to determine the chemical characteristics of soil from the monitoring plots, undertake visual site assessments around each monitoring plot, measure depth to ice-cement, and install 12 passive dust samplers adjacent to the monitoring plots.
This report will give background information on the general characteristics of Scott Base soils, including information on active layer, permafrost, soil moisture, soil organisms, and evidence of natural and human induced changes to the soil-permafrost environment. This will be followed by an explanation of the methodology, results and discussion, on my aspect of this multidisciplinary project.

text: Scott Base Redevelopment CEE environmental monitoring report: Year one (January 2019) An understanding of the soils and the underlying permafrost surrounding Scott Base is important to detect impacts of environmental change or human activities, such as the redevelopment of Scott Base, on the unique soil communities and on geomorphological processes. The Scott Base Redevelopment (SBR) is the largest project ever undertaken by New Zealand in Antarctica. It is a requirement of the Environmental Protocol to the Antarctic Treaty and New Zealand's Antarctica (Environmental Protection) Act (1994) that an environmental impact assessment be completed prior to any activity taking place in Antarctica. A Comprehensive Environmental Evaluation (CEE) of the project is being completed in order to support decision-making with an assessment of predicted environmental impacts linked with the redevelopment. A comprehensive monitoring programme was set up to verify the accuracy of the environmental impact assessment presented in the CEE and to detect unforeseen impacts or impacts that are more significant than expected.
The soil monitoring sites were established in January 2019 to assess current levels of biodiversity and abundance of invertebrates and microbial communities, along with soil chemical characteristics, and visual characteristics within the wider Scott Base redevelopment area. These 25 soil monitoring plots establish a baseline against which future changes can be detected. My role in the project was to determine the chemical characteristics of soil from the monitoring plots, undertake visual site assessments around each monitoring plot, measure depth to ice-cement, and install 12 passive dust samplers adjacent to the monitoring plots.
This report will give background information on the general characteristics of Scott Base soils, including information on active layer, permafrost, soil moisture, soil organisms, and evidence of natural and human induced changes to the soil-permafrost environment. This will be followed by an explanation of the methodology, results and discussion, on my aspect of this multidisciplinary project.

year: 2019

title: Mana Wahine Geographies: Spiritual, Spatial and Embodied Understandings of Papatūānuku

authors: Simmonds, Naomi Beth

subjects: Mana wahine

abstract: This thesis is a theoretical and empirical exploration of Māori women's knowledges and understandings of Papatūānuku in contemporary Aotearoa. The primary focus of this research is on the complexities, connections, and contradictions of Māori women's embodied relationships with the spaces of Papatūānuku - spaces that are simultaneously material, discursive, symbolic, and spiritual. In doing so, I displace the boundaries between coloniser/colonised, self/other, rational/irrational and scientific/spiritual. I demonstrate that Māori women's colonised realities produce multiple, complex and hybrid understandings of Papatūānuku. 

This thesis has three main strands. The first is theoretical. I offer mana wahine (Māori feminist discourses) as another perspective for geography that engages with the complex intersections of colonisation, race and gender. A mana wahine geography framework is a useful lens through which to explore the complexities of Māori women's relationships to space and place. This framework contributes to, and draws together, feminist geographies and Māori and indigenous academic scholarship.

Autobiographical material is woven with joint and individual semi-structured in-depth interviews conducted with nine Māori women in the Waikato region. The second strand, woven into this thesis, is a critical examination of the colonisation of Māori women's spiritual and embodied relationships to Papatūānuku. The invisibility of Māori women's knowledges in dominant conceptualisations of mythology, tikanga and wairua discourses is not a harmless omission rather it contains a political imperative that maintains the hegemony of colonialism and patriarchy. I argue that to understand further Māori women's relationships to space and place an examination of wairua discourses is necessary.

The third strand reconfigures embodied and spatial conceptualisations of Papatūānuku. Māori women's maternal bodies are intimately tied to Papatūānuku in a way that challenges the oppositional distinctions between mind/body and biology/social inscription. Māori women's maternal bodies (and the representation of them in te reo Māori) are constructed by, and in turn, construct Papatūānuku. Furthermore, women's spatial relationship to tūrangawaewae, home space and wider environmental concerns demonstrates the co-constitution of subjectivities, bodies and space/place. 

My hope is that this thesis will add to geographical literature by addressing previously ignored knowledges and that it will contribute to indigenous scholarship by providing a spatial perspective.

text: Mana Wahine Geographies: Spiritual, Spatial and Embodied Understandings of Papatūānuku This thesis is a theoretical and empirical exploration of Māori women's knowledges and understandings of Papatūānuku in contemporary Aotearoa. The primary focus of this research is on the complexities, connections, and contradictions of Māori women's embodied relationships with the spaces of Papatūānuku - spaces that are simultaneously material, discursive, symbolic, and spiritual. In doing so, I displace the boundaries between coloniser/colonised, self/other, rational/irrational and scientific/spiritual. I demonstrate that Māori women's colonised realities produce multiple, complex and hybrid understandings of Papatūānuku. 

This thesis has three main strands. The first is theoretical. I offer mana wahine (Māori feminist discourses) as another perspective for geography that engages with the complex intersections of colonisation, race and gender. A mana wahine geography framework is a useful lens through which to explore the complexities of Māori women's relationships to space and place. This framework contributes to, and draws together, feminist geographies and Māori and indigenous academic scholarship.

Autobiographical material is woven with joint and individual semi-structured in-depth interviews conducted with nine Māori women in the Waikato region. The second strand, woven into this thesis, is a critical examination of the colonisation of Māori women's spiritual and embodied relationships to Papatūānuku. The invisibility of Māori women's knowledges in dominant conceptualisations of mythology, tikanga and wairua discourses is not a harmless omission rather it contains a political imperative that maintains the hegemony of colonialism and patriarchy. I argue that to understand further Māori women's relationships to space and place an examination of wairua discourses is necessary.

The third strand reconfigures embodied and spatial conceptualisations of Papatūānuku. Māori women's maternal bodies are intimately tied to Papatūānuku in a way that challenges the oppositional distinctions between mind/body and biology/social inscription. Māori women's maternal bodies (and the representation of them in te reo Māori) are constructed by, and in turn, construct Papatūānuku. Furthermore, women's spatial relationship to tūrangawaewae, home space and wider environmental concerns demonstrates the co-constitution of subjectivities, bodies and space/place. 

My hope is that this thesis will add to geographical literature by addressing previously ignored knowledges and that it will contribute to indigenous scholarship by providing a spatial perspective.

year: 2009