title: Observations by and conversations with health workers and hospital personnel involved in transferring Maori patients and whānau to Waikato Hospital in Aotearoa New Zealand

authors: Masters-Awatere, Bridgette

subjects: Science & Technology

abstract: The predominant focus of Aotearoa New Zealand’s public health system on biomedical models of health has left little room for meaningful engagement with holistic indigenous approaches. Culturally appropriate provision and support are recognized for their relevance and importance during hospital transferals. Hospital staff involved in transfers to one of New Zealand’s trauma centers share their observations of whānau Māori engagement during an admission away from their home base. Sixteen key informants share their experiences, which are presented as strategies and challenges to whānau engagement. Three main themes highlight challenges within the health system that make it difficult for hospital staff to engage whānau in the desired ways and as often as both parties would like. Key informants described services and practices that are not designed with patients and their whānau in mind; instead they are designed by clinicians around the needs of administrative systems. As employees within the public health system, key informants felt powerless to challenge dominant settings. Nevertheless, employees managed to circumnavigate processes. Our findings highlight the need for continued decolonization and anti-racism work within public health settings.

text: Observations by and conversations with health workers and hospital personnel involved in transferring Maori patients and whānau to Waikato Hospital in Aotearoa New Zealand The predominant focus of Aotearoa New Zealand’s public health system on biomedical models of health has left little room for meaningful engagement with holistic indigenous approaches. Culturally appropriate provision and support are recognized for their relevance and importance during hospital transferals. Hospital staff involved in transfers to one of New Zealand’s trauma centers share their observations of whānau Māori engagement during an admission away from their home base. Sixteen key informants share their experiences, which are presented as strategies and challenges to whānau engagement. Three main themes highlight challenges within the health system that make it difficult for hospital staff to engage whānau in the desired ways and as often as both parties would like. Key informants described services and practices that are not designed with patients and their whānau in mind; instead they are designed by clinicians around the needs of administrative systems. As employees within the public health system, key informants felt powerless to challenge dominant settings. Nevertheless, employees managed to circumnavigate processes. Our findings highlight the need for continued decolonization and anti-racism work within public health settings.

year: 2020

title: Exploring female art-making through reflective practice: A multi-dimensional cultural, spiritual and embodied experience

authors: Bright, Deborah Ann

subjects: female

abstract: This thesis explores some of the many elements and influences of lived experience that are present in acts of art-making. Reflective practice in art-making adds the intentional and purposive act of reflective learning to the experience of art-making. In an academic context the challenge arises for a researcher to adequately represent the breadth and richness of the lived experiences of reflective practice in artmaking. This breadth and richness may embrace elements of art production and influences including gender, culture, spirituality, creativity, creative processes, embodied knowing, the place of conversations and learning as a result of facilitated reflective practice. Adequate representation is particularly vital because art-makers may communicate best through non-verbal means, including embodied knowing and their artmaking, rather than through words. Flexibility of approach and representation is even more important when the art-maker participants engage in various art-making areas and identify themselves as part of indigenous, dominant and/or non-dominant cultures within Aotearoa New Zealand. In this thesis, by applying a feminist participatory approach, informed by kaupapa Maori, I affirmed that the lived experiences of reflective practice in art-making can be adequately represented in a thesis. By such means, I sought to empower the participants, including myself, by providing a process through which they might increase confidence in their own art-making practices and professional artistry. This approach was necessary because no single or even double blending of worldviews can embrace such a range of variables. However, an interweaving of feminist and participatory, informed by indigenous peoples’ worldviews, provides the scope for such a study in terms of fundamental beliefs, ways of knowing, values, issues of power, methodologies and methods. The ways of knowing include collaborative, constructed, cultural, embodied, experiential, indigenous, presentational, propositional, spiritual and subjective and writing as a way of knowing; such a range was vital to this thesis. As artmaker co-participant, I was able to engage in conversation with the other art-makers as facilitator of their reflective practice in art-making and to represent their lived experiences of reflective practice in art-making through verbal and non-verbal means and art-making, in ways that were comfortable culturally to all participants. ii I represent and discuss my findings through formal academic writing, personal narrative and a DVD. The DVD includes a video montage and an image narrative that contribute to the discussion on embodied knowing (Chapter 7), a video of my own dance work, which contributes to the discussion on creativity and visual images (Chapter 6), and a copy of a poster referred to at various times in the findings and discussion chapters. Finally, I conclude that a feminist participatory approach, informed by indigenous peoples’ worldviews and including facilitated reflective practice, may have application to other fields of research and practice including other areas of the arts, teaching, sport and leisure and in the wider field of social sciences.

text: Exploring female art-making through reflective practice: A multi-dimensional cultural, spiritual and embodied experience This thesis explores some of the many elements and influences of lived experience that are present in acts of art-making. Reflective practice in art-making adds the intentional and purposive act of reflective learning to the experience of art-making. In an academic context the challenge arises for a researcher to adequately represent the breadth and richness of the lived experiences of reflective practice in artmaking. This breadth and richness may embrace elements of art production and influences including gender, culture, spirituality, creativity, creative processes, embodied knowing, the place of conversations and learning as a result of facilitated reflective practice. Adequate representation is particularly vital because art-makers may communicate best through non-verbal means, including embodied knowing and their artmaking, rather than through words. Flexibility of approach and representation is even more important when the art-maker participants engage in various art-making areas and identify themselves as part of indigenous, dominant and/or non-dominant cultures within Aotearoa New Zealand. In this thesis, by applying a feminist participatory approach, informed by kaupapa Maori, I affirmed that the lived experiences of reflective practice in art-making can be adequately represented in a thesis. By such means, I sought to empower the participants, including myself, by providing a process through which they might increase confidence in their own art-making practices and professional artistry. This approach was necessary because no single or even double blending of worldviews can embrace such a range of variables. However, an interweaving of feminist and participatory, informed by indigenous peoples’ worldviews, provides the scope for such a study in terms of fundamental beliefs, ways of knowing, values, issues of power, methodologies and methods. The ways of knowing include collaborative, constructed, cultural, embodied, experiential, indigenous, presentational, propositional, spiritual and subjective and writing as a way of knowing; such a range was vital to this thesis. As artmaker co-participant, I was able to engage in conversation with the other art-makers as facilitator of their reflective practice in art-making and to represent their lived experiences of reflective practice in art-making through verbal and non-verbal means and art-making, in ways that were comfortable culturally to all participants. ii I represent and discuss my findings through formal academic writing, personal narrative and a DVD. The DVD includes a video montage and an image narrative that contribute to the discussion on embodied knowing (Chapter 7), a video of my own dance work, which contributes to the discussion on creativity and visual images (Chapter 6), and a copy of a poster referred to at various times in the findings and discussion chapters. Finally, I conclude that a feminist participatory approach, informed by indigenous peoples’ worldviews and including facilitated reflective practice, may have application to other fields of research and practice including other areas of the arts, teaching, sport and leisure and in the wider field of social sciences.

year: 2010

title: The genomic footprint of coastal earthquake uplift

authors: Parvizi, Elahe

subjects: Science & Technology

abstract: Theory suggests that catastrophic earth-history events can drive rapid biological evolution, but empirical evidence for such processes is scarce. Destructive geological events such as earthquakes can represent large-scale natural experiments for inferring such evolutionary processes. We capitalized on a major prehistoric (800 yr BP) geological uplift event affecting a southern New Zealand coastline to test for the lasting genomic impacts of disturbance. Genome-wide analyses of three co-distributed keystone kelp taxa revealed that post-earthquake recolonization drove the evolution of novel, large-scale intertidal spatial genetic ‘sectors’ which are tightly linked to geological fault boundaries. Demographic simulations confirmed that, following widespread extirpation, parallel expansions into newly vacant habitats rapidly restructured genome-wide diversity. Interspecific differences in recolonization mode and tempo reflect differing ecological constraints relating to habitat choice and dispersal capacity among taxa. This study highlights the rapid and enduring evolutionary effects of catastrophic ecosystem disturbance and reveals the key role of range expansion in reshaping spatial genetic patterns.

text: The genomic footprint of coastal earthquake uplift Theory suggests that catastrophic earth-history events can drive rapid biological evolution, but empirical evidence for such processes is scarce. Destructive geological events such as earthquakes can represent large-scale natural experiments for inferring such evolutionary processes. We capitalized on a major prehistoric (800 yr BP) geological uplift event affecting a southern New Zealand coastline to test for the lasting genomic impacts of disturbance. Genome-wide analyses of three co-distributed keystone kelp taxa revealed that post-earthquake recolonization drove the evolution of novel, large-scale intertidal spatial genetic ‘sectors’ which are tightly linked to geological fault boundaries. Demographic simulations confirmed that, following widespread extirpation, parallel expansions into newly vacant habitats rapidly restructured genome-wide diversity. Interspecific differences in recolonization mode and tempo reflect differing ecological constraints relating to habitat choice and dispersal capacity among taxa. This study highlights the rapid and enduring evolutionary effects of catastrophic ecosystem disturbance and reveals the key role of range expansion in reshaping spatial genetic patterns.

year: 2020