title: Science, public participation and spin

authors: Ninnes, Ted

subjects: scientific research

abstract: This chapter deals with the relationship between scientific research, government regulation and public perceptions of risk. Two issues that have had a significant public profile and engendered vigorous debate will be discussed to show how the specific dimensions of these varied approaches to the perception of risk unfold. The two issues chosen to illustrate the contradictory and positioned nature of analytical approaches and risk evaluations used by the government, science institutions and the public are dioxin contamination of the environment and its subsequent contested health effects, and conventional versus organic food production and the relationship between these production methods and the consumption of pesticide residues by the general public (once again as an issue concerning public perceptions of health). In each case, scientific research will be discussed to show important ways the science informing wider debates on these topics is a contested field.

text: Science, public participation and spin This chapter deals with the relationship between scientific research, government regulation and public perceptions of risk. Two issues that have had a significant public profile and engendered vigorous debate will be discussed to show how the specific dimensions of these varied approaches to the perception of risk unfold. The two issues chosen to illustrate the contradictory and positioned nature of analytical approaches and risk evaluations used by the government, science institutions and the public are dioxin contamination of the environment and its subsequent contested health effects, and conventional versus organic food production and the relationship between these production methods and the consumption of pesticide residues by the general public (once again as an issue concerning public perceptions of health). In each case, scientific research will be discussed to show important ways the science informing wider debates on these topics is a contested field.

year: 2004

title: Ranking economics departments in terms of residual productivity: New Zealand economics departments, 2000–2006

authors: Anderson, David L.

subjects: economic departments

abstract: This paper utilises a human-capital approach for ranking the research productivity of academic departments. Our approach provides rankings in terms of residual research output after controlling for the key characteristics of each department's academic staff. More specifically, we estimate residual research output rankings for all of New Zealand's economics departments based on their publication performance over the 2000 to 2006 period. We do so after taking into account the following characteristics of each department's academic staff: gender, experience, seniority, academic credentials and academic rank. The paper demonstrates that the rankings generated by the residual research approach and those generated by traditional approaches to research rankings may be significantly different for some departments. These differences are important in determining the likely efficiency impact of research assessment exercises.

text: Ranking economics departments in terms of residual productivity: New Zealand economics departments, 2000–2006 This paper utilises a human-capital approach for ranking the research productivity of academic departments. Our approach provides rankings in terms of residual research output after controlling for the key characteristics of each department's academic staff. More specifically, we estimate residual research output rankings for all of New Zealand's economics departments based on their publication performance over the 2000 to 2006 period. We do so after taking into account the following characteristics of each department's academic staff: gender, experience, seniority, academic credentials and academic rank. The paper demonstrates that the rankings generated by the residual research approach and those generated by traditional approaches to research rankings may be significantly different for some departments. These differences are important in determining the likely efficiency impact of research assessment exercises.

year: 2011

title: Place imaginaries: Photography and place-making at Te Awa River Ride

authors: Hill, Rodrigo

subjects: photography

abstract: Contemporary photographic practice has evolved into a field of possibilities, which includes a flux of representational modes that depict experiences, feelings and emotions. This PhD with Creative Practice Components investigates how photography is embedded within ways of knowing, experiencing and making places and the subsequent visual constructions of place imaginaries.  Drawing on contemporary photographic practice and theory, I position myself as a qualitative researcher engaged in creative practice, specifically lens-based approaches and modes of photographic representation. In contrast to photography’s dominant discourse centred on indexical and objective assumptions, I understand photographic practices and images as constructions of multiple meanings.

I use Te Awa River Ride as my research locale, a place where different practices and discourses entangle, forming a diverse set of dynamic and intersecting meanings. Te Awa River Ride is a shared pathway, with a planned total length of 70 kilometres, that edges the banks of the Waikato River from Ngāruawāhia to Cambridge, in the central North Island of Aotearoa New Zealand. I understand Te Awa River Ride as a place-composite, layered by multiple place imaginaries, including indigenous Māori, Pākehā and European ways of meaning and place-making. In this thesis I draw upon place imaginaries as a way of expressing visual possibilities, constructions and affective responses to my own and others’ experiences at this unique research location. 

My photography practice aims to actualise particular place imaginaries through curation and sequencing of lens-based explorations of light, movement and water. This process and the compilation of imagery into curatorial products, such as photography installations, generate novel ways of perceiving the Waikato River and Te Awa River Ride, revealing the centrality of photography in place-making processes.

text: Place imaginaries: Photography and place-making at Te Awa River Ride Contemporary photographic practice has evolved into a field of possibilities, which includes a flux of representational modes that depict experiences, feelings and emotions. This PhD with Creative Practice Components investigates how photography is embedded within ways of knowing, experiencing and making places and the subsequent visual constructions of place imaginaries.  Drawing on contemporary photographic practice and theory, I position myself as a qualitative researcher engaged in creative practice, specifically lens-based approaches and modes of photographic representation. In contrast to photography’s dominant discourse centred on indexical and objective assumptions, I understand photographic practices and images as constructions of multiple meanings.

I use Te Awa River Ride as my research locale, a place where different practices and discourses entangle, forming a diverse set of dynamic and intersecting meanings. Te Awa River Ride is a shared pathway, with a planned total length of 70 kilometres, that edges the banks of the Waikato River from Ngāruawāhia to Cambridge, in the central North Island of Aotearoa New Zealand. I understand Te Awa River Ride as a place-composite, layered by multiple place imaginaries, including indigenous Māori, Pākehā and European ways of meaning and place-making. In this thesis I draw upon place imaginaries as a way of expressing visual possibilities, constructions and affective responses to my own and others’ experiences at this unique research location. 

My photography practice aims to actualise particular place imaginaries through curation and sequencing of lens-based explorations of light, movement and water. This process and the compilation of imagery into curatorial products, such as photography installations, generate novel ways of perceiving the Waikato River and Te Awa River Ride, revealing the centrality of photography in place-making processes.

year: 2019