title: Lake biosecurity - Local actions and results

authors: Lass, Hamish

abstract: Thank you, I keep my biography short and sharp and probably should add that in a cruel twist I was born the year hornwort first invaded Lake Rotorua. I have been working from the Rotorua office for 11 years as a biosecurity officer focusing mainly on freshwater biosecurity.

text: Lake biosecurity - Local actions and results Thank you, I keep my biography short and sharp and probably should add that in a cruel twist I was born the year hornwort first invaded Lake Rotorua. I have been working from the Rotorua office for 11 years as a biosecurity officer focusing mainly on freshwater biosecurity.

year: 2017

title: 'The Doors of Perception': Science, Religion, and Literature in Britain's Long-Nineteenth Century, 1789-1914

authors: Speedy, Samuel Weston

subjects: science

abstract: In Britain’s long-nineteenth century (1789-1914), religious explanations of the world were challenged with the rise of science, leading to the question of how religion survived. Both fiction and non-fiction explored this issue, offering ‘thought experiments’ regarding religion’s role in society; where texts implicitly or explicitly raise a question, and test it through a hypothetical scenario or scenarios. In accordance with the Linguistic Turn, these thought experiments can be viewed as linguistic constructs, where language itself is held to construct the outcomes of these thought experiments. Yet at the same time, language is limited in how can describe the world; from the vastness of time and space to the quality of feelings and emotions. Thus it is not just language, but the limits of language – characterised here as the ‘doors of perception’ – that have effects on worldviews; effects that throw light on the capacities in which religion survived the rise of science, and which are the subject of this thesis. 
Each chapter juxtaposes predominantly science-oriented non-fiction with religion-oriented creative works, dividing the thesis into the six scientific contexts that were the most important to the long-nineteenth century: natural theology, utilitarianism, geology, biology, anthropology, and psychology. Key figures investigated include Thomas Paine, William Paley, David Hume, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, William Blake, William Wordsworth, Mary Shelley, John Keats, Jeremy Bentham, Thomas Carlyle, Charles Dickens, Charles Lyell, Alfred Lord Tennyson, Charles Darwin, Matthew Arnold, David Friedrich Strauss, Ludwig Feuerbach, George Eliot, Walter Pater, and Oscar Wilde. 
One effect of the limits of language was on religious belief itself, specifically as pertains to intelligent design (independently of questions of whether the belief is correct). Here, because people found it difficult, if not impossible, to describe the vastness of time, they also found it difficult to describe the rise of complex natural phenomena in any terms that require the vastness of time. Instead, they described the rise of complexity in the comfortable terms in which it could rise within the timescale of a human life; i.e., a process analogous to human design. This was aided by the fact that fixed, essentialist distinctions, as given by words, names, and labels, were applied to natural phenomena on timescales that language can describe, and this influenced a belief that these phenomena actually were fixed, essentialist, and unchanging; phenomena which could only have come into existence fully formed, rendering intelligent design the only explanation. 
Another effect of the limits of language was that they assisted religious experience. Here, when people found it difficult to adequately describe time, space, emotions, beauty, etc., there was a sense that experience was transcending the essentialist words, names, and labels that otherwise differentiate and atomise the world into separate phenomena, including those differentiating ‘subject’ from ‘object’, ‘self’ from ‘other’ and ‘us’ from ‘them’. This characterised the religious experience of self-transcendent awe. Sometimes, this experience was itself described in terms of divine design; sometimes it was not. Sometimes, it also had the effect of making people believe that to reduce a phenomenon to the level of rational linguistic description was to, in some way, devalue it.
Both effects recurred consistently in scientific and religious literature of the long-nineteenth century, and explain how religion’s survival was effected.

text: 'The Doors of Perception': Science, Religion, and Literature in Britain's Long-Nineteenth Century, 1789-1914 In Britain’s long-nineteenth century (1789-1914), religious explanations of the world were challenged with the rise of science, leading to the question of how religion survived. Both fiction and non-fiction explored this issue, offering ‘thought experiments’ regarding religion’s role in society; where texts implicitly or explicitly raise a question, and test it through a hypothetical scenario or scenarios. In accordance with the Linguistic Turn, these thought experiments can be viewed as linguistic constructs, where language itself is held to construct the outcomes of these thought experiments. Yet at the same time, language is limited in how can describe the world; from the vastness of time and space to the quality of feelings and emotions. Thus it is not just language, but the limits of language – characterised here as the ‘doors of perception’ – that have effects on worldviews; effects that throw light on the capacities in which religion survived the rise of science, and which are the subject of this thesis. 
Each chapter juxtaposes predominantly science-oriented non-fiction with religion-oriented creative works, dividing the thesis into the six scientific contexts that were the most important to the long-nineteenth century: natural theology, utilitarianism, geology, biology, anthropology, and psychology. Key figures investigated include Thomas Paine, William Paley, David Hume, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, William Blake, William Wordsworth, Mary Shelley, John Keats, Jeremy Bentham, Thomas Carlyle, Charles Dickens, Charles Lyell, Alfred Lord Tennyson, Charles Darwin, Matthew Arnold, David Friedrich Strauss, Ludwig Feuerbach, George Eliot, Walter Pater, and Oscar Wilde. 
One effect of the limits of language was on religious belief itself, specifically as pertains to intelligent design (independently of questions of whether the belief is correct). Here, because people found it difficult, if not impossible, to describe the vastness of time, they also found it difficult to describe the rise of complex natural phenomena in any terms that require the vastness of time. Instead, they described the rise of complexity in the comfortable terms in which it could rise within the timescale of a human life; i.e., a process analogous to human design. This was aided by the fact that fixed, essentialist distinctions, as given by words, names, and labels, were applied to natural phenomena on timescales that language can describe, and this influenced a belief that these phenomena actually were fixed, essentialist, and unchanging; phenomena which could only have come into existence fully formed, rendering intelligent design the only explanation. 
Another effect of the limits of language was that they assisted religious experience. Here, when people found it difficult to adequately describe time, space, emotions, beauty, etc., there was a sense that experience was transcending the essentialist words, names, and labels that otherwise differentiate and atomise the world into separate phenomena, including those differentiating ‘subject’ from ‘object’, ‘self’ from ‘other’ and ‘us’ from ‘them’. This characterised the religious experience of self-transcendent awe. Sometimes, this experience was itself described in terms of divine design; sometimes it was not. Sometimes, it also had the effect of making people believe that to reduce a phenomenon to the level of rational linguistic description was to, in some way, devalue it.
Both effects recurred consistently in scientific and religious literature of the long-nineteenth century, and explain how religion’s survival was effected.

year: 2013

title: Defining indigenous trade: A working paper incorporating Māori and indigenous perspectives

authors: McLellan, Georgia

abstract: This working paper is part of a New Zealand Government–funded research project titled ‘Tauhokohoko: Enabling mana motuhake through Indigenous trade’ (Tauhokohoko), which was developed by the University of Waikato and Te Rōpū Taumata Charitable Trust (Te Taumata). The paper was prepared by the Tauhokohoko Research Aim 1.3 team and sets out a working definition of ‘Indigenous trade’.

The Tauhokohoko Research Aim 1.3 team acknowledges that the term ‘Indigenous’ can be problematic, since it collectivises the experiences of all Indigenous peoples. The project acknowledges the diverse realities of Indigenous peoples and strives to use the term in an inclusive way. Despite the existence of fraught relations between Indigenous peoples and postcolonial trade practices, Indigenous peoples have always had their own trade practices and relations grounded in Indigenous ways of being, knowing and doing. Within contemporary economies, Indigenous peoples are increasingly turning to international trade to meet their economic, social and cultural aspirations.

The Tauhokohoko Research Aim 1.3 team believes that Indigenous trade, when practiced in the right way, can be used as a tool for enhancing Indigenous self-determination and collective wellbeing. This paper outlines a tentative definition of ‘Indigenous trade’ for research purposes and provides grounded examples of Indigenous trade that fit within that tentative definition. The Tauhokohoko project is concerned primarily with the involvement of Indigenous peoples in international trade as a financial activity; however, the tentative definition encompasses financial, non financial, tangible and non-tangible forms of exchange. The paper ends by outlining the key literature that informs the working definition of ‘Indigenous trade’, including perspectives on the origins of international trade and Indigenous trade, international business and entrepreneurship, and Indigenous economies.

text: Defining indigenous trade: A working paper incorporating Māori and indigenous perspectives This working paper is part of a New Zealand Government–funded research project titled ‘Tauhokohoko: Enabling mana motuhake through Indigenous trade’ (Tauhokohoko), which was developed by the University of Waikato and Te Rōpū Taumata Charitable Trust (Te Taumata). The paper was prepared by the Tauhokohoko Research Aim 1.3 team and sets out a working definition of ‘Indigenous trade’.

The Tauhokohoko Research Aim 1.3 team acknowledges that the term ‘Indigenous’ can be problematic, since it collectivises the experiences of all Indigenous peoples. The project acknowledges the diverse realities of Indigenous peoples and strives to use the term in an inclusive way. Despite the existence of fraught relations between Indigenous peoples and postcolonial trade practices, Indigenous peoples have always had their own trade practices and relations grounded in Indigenous ways of being, knowing and doing. Within contemporary economies, Indigenous peoples are increasingly turning to international trade to meet their economic, social and cultural aspirations.

The Tauhokohoko Research Aim 1.3 team believes that Indigenous trade, when practiced in the right way, can be used as a tool for enhancing Indigenous self-determination and collective wellbeing. This paper outlines a tentative definition of ‘Indigenous trade’ for research purposes and provides grounded examples of Indigenous trade that fit within that tentative definition. The Tauhokohoko project is concerned primarily with the involvement of Indigenous peoples in international trade as a financial activity; however, the tentative definition encompasses financial, non financial, tangible and non-tangible forms of exchange. The paper ends by outlining the key literature that informs the working definition of ‘Indigenous trade’, including perspectives on the origins of international trade and Indigenous trade, international business and entrepreneurship, and Indigenous economies.

year: 2025-12-10