title: Women sex workers’ embodied experiences of sport, exercise and physical leisure in Aotearoa New Zealand

authors: O'Leary, Grace

subjects: Sex Work

abstract: This thesis focuses on women’s bodies that occupy and move in and between spaces of sex work and sport, exercise and physical leisure. Extending the literature that continues to describe women sex workers as victims, this thesis gives voice to women’s everyday lived experiences, capturing the complex and multilayered realities of their lives.
Adopting an ethnographic approach, I provide space for women sex workers to share their experiences of sport, exercise and physical leisure. Drawing on interviews with 17 women sex workers living in Aotearoa New Zealand, and observations at sex work places including clubs, brothels and New Zealand Prostitutes’ Collective (NZPC) centres, I explore how women sex workers negotiate their moving bodies in spaces of sport, exercise and physical leisure.

Findings are organised into three empirical chapters, each engaging with a different theory to inform the analysis. The first empirical chapter offers a feminist engagement with Pierre Bourdieu to provide an intersectional mapping of the diverse experiences of sport, exercise, and physical leisure that have impacted women’s embodiment from childhood through to adolescence and adulthood. The second chapter draws upon Michel Foucault’s theories of power, technologies, and discourses to examine how institutions of sex work and sport influence bodies, and how women sex workers embody multiple, shifting, and sometimes contradictory subject positions in relation to discourses of sex work and wider social discourses of femininity. The third chapter engages with feminist theories of emotion and affect to understand how disgust, shame, and pride construct affective bodies and spaces that are (inter)personal, collective, and political.

The combination of feminist poststructuralist theories and reflexive, embodied methodologies provides a platform for accessing women sex workers’ knowledges and experiences of gender and sex across work and sporting spaces. This research is situated at the intersections of sport, sex work, and women’s bodies, with insights and knowledge that promote inclusion and understanding of the mutually constitutive relationships between them.

text: Women sex workers’ embodied experiences of sport, exercise and physical leisure in Aotearoa New Zealand This thesis focuses on women’s bodies that occupy and move in and between spaces of sex work and sport, exercise and physical leisure. Extending the literature that continues to describe women sex workers as victims, this thesis gives voice to women’s everyday lived experiences, capturing the complex and multilayered realities of their lives.
Adopting an ethnographic approach, I provide space for women sex workers to share their experiences of sport, exercise and physical leisure. Drawing on interviews with 17 women sex workers living in Aotearoa New Zealand, and observations at sex work places including clubs, brothels and New Zealand Prostitutes’ Collective (NZPC) centres, I explore how women sex workers negotiate their moving bodies in spaces of sport, exercise and physical leisure.

Findings are organised into three empirical chapters, each engaging with a different theory to inform the analysis. The first empirical chapter offers a feminist engagement with Pierre Bourdieu to provide an intersectional mapping of the diverse experiences of sport, exercise, and physical leisure that have impacted women’s embodiment from childhood through to adolescence and adulthood. The second chapter draws upon Michel Foucault’s theories of power, technologies, and discourses to examine how institutions of sex work and sport influence bodies, and how women sex workers embody multiple, shifting, and sometimes contradictory subject positions in relation to discourses of sex work and wider social discourses of femininity. The third chapter engages with feminist theories of emotion and affect to understand how disgust, shame, and pride construct affective bodies and spaces that are (inter)personal, collective, and political.

The combination of feminist poststructuralist theories and reflexive, embodied methodologies provides a platform for accessing women sex workers’ knowledges and experiences of gender and sex across work and sporting spaces. This research is situated at the intersections of sport, sex work, and women’s bodies, with insights and knowledge that promote inclusion and understanding of the mutually constitutive relationships between them.

year: 2019

title: Book review: Process theology: A guide for the perplexed

authors: Pratt, Douglas

abstract: This article reviews the book "Process Theology: A Guide for the Perplexed by Bruce G. Epperly, T&T Clark".

text: Book review: Process theology: A guide for the perplexed This article reviews the book "Process Theology: A Guide for the Perplexed by Bruce G. Epperly, T&T Clark".

year: 2013

title: He whare mātātuhi Tūhoe:  A Tūhoe re-visioning of English language literary texts

authors: Salsano, Marama

subjects: Māori writers

abstract: This thesis urges more Māori to undertake iwi-based readings of English language literary texts. I have chosen to privilege my father’s iwi, Ngāi Tūhoe, and to examine what Tūhoetana means to me and how it might thus enrich my reading of texts. In our ancestral tongue, Ngāi Tūhoe have a rich and pronounced history of storytelling, literary composition, analysis and critique. Unfortunately, this richness is woefully underappreciated within the English language literary landscape. Yet, as the ranks of Māori writers swell, along with the diversity of literary forms that Māori create, so too must Māori – and more specifically iwi – literary scholarship flourish, for if we do not critique the texts that are written about, of, and on behalf of us, who will? Throughout this thesis, I use the terms ‘iwi literary scholars’ and ‘iwi literary scholarship’ to consciously and repeatedly remind the reader of the rich, literary legacies residing within iwi archives; I also hope to highlight the exciting and endless possiblitites for the English language literary landscape to be enriched by readings that are founded within these archives – including the histories, everyday experiences and understandings from our tīpuna. 

Structurally, this thesis is divided into three broad strands. Chapters 1-3 focus on whakawhanaunatana and background information to my research. Because this thesis also represents the singular piece of writing that I wish I had read prior to enrolling in the thesis paper for this Master’s degree, my academic hīkoi – frustrations and all – is a necessary component and is covered in chapter 2. Chapters 4-6 then examine three different types of literary texts created by wāhine. These texts include the short story “Birth Rights” by Ngāi Tahu science fiction and fantasy writer, J.C. Hart (2010), the Instagram post Te Kuharere tapes by Ngāti Kahungungu and Ngāti Tuwharetoa songwriter and storyteller @tekahureremoa (2019) – also known as the performer Ladyfruit – and the young adult novel Dark Souls by Ngāti Wai, Ngāti Manuhiri, and Ngāti Whatua writer, Paula Morris (2011). While 21st century texts published on platforms such as Instagram may not sit easily within a traditional English literary curriculum, and indeed the novelty of these specific forms may well prove fleeting, the ‘everydayness’ of online texts yields rewarding analysis opportunities and is currently amiss within mainstream English literary studies. Each of these analysis chapters contains a focused introduction and conclusion, since chapter 7, the concluding chapter of this thesis, is a letter to future iwi literary scholars. 

Woven throughout this rangahau is a call for iwi scholars to consciously: engage with the literary traditions of their own iwi; identify the colonial thoughts and motives that they bring to the reading of literary texts; bring their tīpuna to the reading, but let the text itself breathe life into the critique and; consider the genres and types of texts that they critique. Ultimately, this thesis considers how engaging with the literary legacies of our tīpuna might broaden the English language literary landscape and thus enhance the body of iwi literary scholarship in Oceania and beyond.

text: He whare mātātuhi Tūhoe:  A Tūhoe re-visioning of English language literary texts This thesis urges more Māori to undertake iwi-based readings of English language literary texts. I have chosen to privilege my father’s iwi, Ngāi Tūhoe, and to examine what Tūhoetana means to me and how it might thus enrich my reading of texts. In our ancestral tongue, Ngāi Tūhoe have a rich and pronounced history of storytelling, literary composition, analysis and critique. Unfortunately, this richness is woefully underappreciated within the English language literary landscape. Yet, as the ranks of Māori writers swell, along with the diversity of literary forms that Māori create, so too must Māori – and more specifically iwi – literary scholarship flourish, for if we do not critique the texts that are written about, of, and on behalf of us, who will? Throughout this thesis, I use the terms ‘iwi literary scholars’ and ‘iwi literary scholarship’ to consciously and repeatedly remind the reader of the rich, literary legacies residing within iwi archives; I also hope to highlight the exciting and endless possiblitites for the English language literary landscape to be enriched by readings that are founded within these archives – including the histories, everyday experiences and understandings from our tīpuna. 

Structurally, this thesis is divided into three broad strands. Chapters 1-3 focus on whakawhanaunatana and background information to my research. Because this thesis also represents the singular piece of writing that I wish I had read prior to enrolling in the thesis paper for this Master’s degree, my academic hīkoi – frustrations and all – is a necessary component and is covered in chapter 2. Chapters 4-6 then examine three different types of literary texts created by wāhine. These texts include the short story “Birth Rights” by Ngāi Tahu science fiction and fantasy writer, J.C. Hart (2010), the Instagram post Te Kuharere tapes by Ngāti Kahungungu and Ngāti Tuwharetoa songwriter and storyteller @tekahureremoa (2019) – also known as the performer Ladyfruit – and the young adult novel Dark Souls by Ngāti Wai, Ngāti Manuhiri, and Ngāti Whatua writer, Paula Morris (2011). While 21st century texts published on platforms such as Instagram may not sit easily within a traditional English literary curriculum, and indeed the novelty of these specific forms may well prove fleeting, the ‘everydayness’ of online texts yields rewarding analysis opportunities and is currently amiss within mainstream English literary studies. Each of these analysis chapters contains a focused introduction and conclusion, since chapter 7, the concluding chapter of this thesis, is a letter to future iwi literary scholars. 

Woven throughout this rangahau is a call for iwi scholars to consciously: engage with the literary traditions of their own iwi; identify the colonial thoughts and motives that they bring to the reading of literary texts; bring their tīpuna to the reading, but let the text itself breathe life into the critique and; consider the genres and types of texts that they critique. Ultimately, this thesis considers how engaging with the literary legacies of our tīpuna might broaden the English language literary landscape and thus enhance the body of iwi literary scholarship in Oceania and beyond.

year: 2021