title: FASS Scene Setter: Research experiences in disaster scholarship

authors: Hutcheson, Gail Yvonne

abstract: The main aim was to put into conversation established areas of geographical thought on disaster and natural hazards with emerging work in cultural geography on emotion and affect.

Critical analysis of conducting research in the post disaster environment carries with it very particular sets of researcher-researched relationships.

I focused on relocation firstly as I am not from CHCH, nor is my family and I didn’t experience the earthquakes. Immediately, I did not feel comfortable flying down to CHCH to conduct research as an outsider
Utilising emotion and affect as a framework for interrogating disasters allowed me to focus not only on the micro scale but also on how people are drawn into collectives

text: FASS Scene Setter: Research experiences in disaster scholarship The main aim was to put into conversation established areas of geographical thought on disaster and natural hazards with emerging work in cultural geography on emotion and affect.

Critical analysis of conducting research in the post disaster environment carries with it very particular sets of researcher-researched relationships.

I focused on relocation firstly as I am not from CHCH, nor is my family and I didn’t experience the earthquakes. Immediately, I did not feel comfortable flying down to CHCH to conduct research as an outsider
Utilising emotion and affect as a framework for interrogating disasters allowed me to focus not only on the micro scale but also on how people are drawn into collectives

year: 2015

title: Investigation of sorted bedforms, Tauranga Harbour, New Zealand

authors: Spiers, Kyle C.

subjects: rippled sour depression

abstract: Elongated bands of coarse grained ripples (sorted bedforms) are common in the nearshore swell wave environment and have been identified by numerous researchers. Although there is a general concurrence regarding the maintenance of these features, the mechanism controlling their formation and positional stability is still under discussion. In 2004-5 the current study was conducted to investigate sorted bedforms on the inner shelf off Mt Maunganui beach, which is located on the north-eastern coast of New Zealand. The morphology and evolution of these features was examined by 4 side-scan sonar surveys, spanning 9 months. The influence of wave convergence on the formation and positional stability of the sorted bedforms was investigated via a calibrated numerical wave model (Mike21-NSW). Transects from multibeam bathymetry were used to assess the influence of alongshore flow. Results from the side-scan sonar surveys indicate an alternating pattern of degradation and restoration during the monitoring period. Based upon numerical model simulations it seems likely that the positional stability of the elongated sorted bedforms at Mt Maunganui is primarily determined by localised wave height reinforcement, resulting from the focussing of wave energy by two offshore spoil mounds. Cross-sections indicate that the maintenance of these features is likely to be assisted by increased near-bottom turbulence over the coarse bedformed areas and removal of fine suspended load by superimposed alongshore currents.

text: Investigation of sorted bedforms, Tauranga Harbour, New Zealand Elongated bands of coarse grained ripples (sorted bedforms) are common in the nearshore swell wave environment and have been identified by numerous researchers. Although there is a general concurrence regarding the maintenance of these features, the mechanism controlling their formation and positional stability is still under discussion. In 2004-5 the current study was conducted to investigate sorted bedforms on the inner shelf off Mt Maunganui beach, which is located on the north-eastern coast of New Zealand. The morphology and evolution of these features was examined by 4 side-scan sonar surveys, spanning 9 months. The influence of wave convergence on the formation and positional stability of the sorted bedforms was investigated via a calibrated numerical wave model (Mike21-NSW). Transects from multibeam bathymetry were used to assess the influence of alongshore flow. Results from the side-scan sonar surveys indicate an alternating pattern of degradation and restoration during the monitoring period. Based upon numerical model simulations it seems likely that the positional stability of the elongated sorted bedforms at Mt Maunganui is primarily determined by localised wave height reinforcement, resulting from the focussing of wave energy by two offshore spoil mounds. Cross-sections indicate that the maintenance of these features is likely to be assisted by increased near-bottom turbulence over the coarse bedformed areas and removal of fine suspended load by superimposed alongshore currents.

year: 2007

title: Possibilities of transformation: discourses of difference in organisational communication

authors: Jones, Deborah Helen

abstract: In this thesis I set out to create an interdisciplinary location from which to address the relationship between gender and communication in an organisational context. I draw on feminist and post-structuralist theory to ask the question: How is ‘difference’ constructed in organisational communication? I use the term ‘difference’ here to indicate that I am interested in how ‘gender’ works in relationship with other kinds of difference, especially in relation to ethnic difference.

My thesis is intended as a contribution to feminist communication theory, and specifically, to the emerging field of feminist organisational communication. Because of the approach I take to ‘communication’, this project addresses broad issues of identity, agency and discourse in organisations. In this sense, I also see the thesis as a contribution to organisational studies, and particularly to the study of organisational discourse, which opens up new relationships between ‘organisation’ and ‘communication’. Interdisciplinarity itself is a key issue in my thesis, as I set out to create connections between disciplinary fields in the service of contesting them, rather than seeking to create new boundaries. A second key focus is the development of theoretical sophistication in the field of gender and communication. I draw on feminist/post-structuralist theory, especially feminist readings of Michel Foucault’s work to generate this development. My third key focus is the issue of agency, which I see as central to theorising organisational transformation, and also as central to re-thinking communication theory.

My writing strategies demonstrate my commitments to reflexivity in developing feminist/post-structuralist research epistemologies, and I experiment with ways of paying attention to issues of authority throughout the thesis. This thesis is divided into two main parts. In Chapters 2 to 6, I set up a theoretical framework for feminist/post-structuralist accounts of gender and ethnicity, and weave this theory through the literatures of ‘gender and communication’, ‘cross-cultural communication’, and ‘organisational communication’. I set out to produce an ‘autocritique’, an opportunity to draw on developments in post-structuralist theory to think differently about feminist ‘organisational communication’, putting it within a broader framework of ‘difference’.

In the second part of the thesis, Chapters 7 to 12, I put issues generated by this theoretical framework in a specific organisational context, asking: How are gender and ethnic differences constructed in the discourses of Equal Employment Opportunities (EEO) and Biculturalism in New Zealand government organisations? Chapters 7 and 8 introduce my field studies methodology and research subjects, and provide background narratives which frame the historical and cultural context in which they were carried out. In Chapters 9 to 12 I carry out a discourse analysis of interviews with EEO and Biculturalism practitioners, and also analyse published and unpublished documents associated with ‘difference’ in employment policies. These accounts of field studies are intended as a series of experiments with theorising ‘organisational communication’ in different ways. I complete the thesis with a ‘Review’ (Chapter 13) in which I reflect on key theoretical threads, and on further questions that emerged during the project.

text: Possibilities of transformation: discourses of difference in organisational communication In this thesis I set out to create an interdisciplinary location from which to address the relationship between gender and communication in an organisational context. I draw on feminist and post-structuralist theory to ask the question: How is ‘difference’ constructed in organisational communication? I use the term ‘difference’ here to indicate that I am interested in how ‘gender’ works in relationship with other kinds of difference, especially in relation to ethnic difference.

My thesis is intended as a contribution to feminist communication theory, and specifically, to the emerging field of feminist organisational communication. Because of the approach I take to ‘communication’, this project addresses broad issues of identity, agency and discourse in organisations. In this sense, I also see the thesis as a contribution to organisational studies, and particularly to the study of organisational discourse, which opens up new relationships between ‘organisation’ and ‘communication’. Interdisciplinarity itself is a key issue in my thesis, as I set out to create connections between disciplinary fields in the service of contesting them, rather than seeking to create new boundaries. A second key focus is the development of theoretical sophistication in the field of gender and communication. I draw on feminist/post-structuralist theory, especially feminist readings of Michel Foucault’s work to generate this development. My third key focus is the issue of agency, which I see as central to theorising organisational transformation, and also as central to re-thinking communication theory.

My writing strategies demonstrate my commitments to reflexivity in developing feminist/post-structuralist research epistemologies, and I experiment with ways of paying attention to issues of authority throughout the thesis. This thesis is divided into two main parts. In Chapters 2 to 6, I set up a theoretical framework for feminist/post-structuralist accounts of gender and ethnicity, and weave this theory through the literatures of ‘gender and communication’, ‘cross-cultural communication’, and ‘organisational communication’. I set out to produce an ‘autocritique’, an opportunity to draw on developments in post-structuralist theory to think differently about feminist ‘organisational communication’, putting it within a broader framework of ‘difference’.

In the second part of the thesis, Chapters 7 to 12, I put issues generated by this theoretical framework in a specific organisational context, asking: How are gender and ethnic differences constructed in the discourses of Equal Employment Opportunities (EEO) and Biculturalism in New Zealand government organisations? Chapters 7 and 8 introduce my field studies methodology and research subjects, and provide background narratives which frame the historical and cultural context in which they were carried out. In Chapters 9 to 12 I carry out a discourse analysis of interviews with EEO and Biculturalism practitioners, and also analyse published and unpublished documents associated with ‘difference’ in employment policies. These accounts of field studies are intended as a series of experiments with theorising ‘organisational communication’ in different ways. I complete the thesis with a ‘Review’ (Chapter 13) in which I reflect on key theoretical threads, and on further questions that emerged during the project.

year: 1998