title: TOKU TIA: Tuvalu and the impacts of climate change

authors: Falefou, Tapugao

subjects: Tuvalu

abstract: Climate change is the greatest and most profound threat the world is facing today. Its impacts on the environment, species of all kinds, and humanity is intensifying at an unprecedented rate. Low-lying atoll states, such as Tuvalu, because of their geomorphologies, are exposed directly to climate change impacts. Scientific predictions of the rising sea levels and media representations of low-lying atolls becoming uninhabitable and sinking are increasingly causing grave concerns to people living in atoll states. 
This thesis endeavours to examine the perceptions of the people of Tuvalu about climate change and sea level rise. Situated within the human geography theoretical framework, this study specifically explores the cultural and emotional geographies of Tuvaluans in relation to these phenomena. Cultural and national identities are the two pillars that embrace the study. 
In examining Tuvaluans’ perceptions, the study noticed that most people display a profound uncertainty about the future of their cultural heritage and the country’s national sovereignty. The emotions and affects of the people about their future are overwhelmingly touching and heartbreaking. As people who highly value coconut in their traditional ways of life, Tuvaluans’ perceptions are analogous to what I metaphorically call “coconut roots and coconut fruits”. Tuvaluans’ conception of sense of place is one that has very strong connections and attachment to their fenua or island or land like the coconut roots to the soil. However, Tuvaluans, like other Pacific islanders, are also voyagers and great explorers who have traversed the Pacific oceans for centuries like the “coconut fruits” that can drift in the ocean for long periods and become established once washed ashore. Yet, the encroaching effect of climate change and sea level rise is greatly reshaping the rootedness and/or fluidity of Tuvaluans.
Tuvaluans’ perceptions are greatly influenced by their religious beliefs. As citizens of a Christian atoll state, the majority of Tuvaluans firmly believe that the rainbow in Noah’s narrative is unequivocal. However, there is a new interpretation growing within the Tuvalu Christian Church leadership that casts doubt on this view and finds the rainbow starting to fade in their perception of climate change and sea level rise. Tuvaluans understand that they need to construct an ark – solution – to save the islands. Unless the world renders genuine support to the implementation of Tuvalu’s Climate Change Policy known as Te Kaniva, Tuvaluans will not be able to construct the ark and may well be displaced causing their identities to vanish in the passage of time.

text: TOKU TIA: Tuvalu and the impacts of climate change Climate change is the greatest and most profound threat the world is facing today. Its impacts on the environment, species of all kinds, and humanity is intensifying at an unprecedented rate. Low-lying atoll states, such as Tuvalu, because of their geomorphologies, are exposed directly to climate change impacts. Scientific predictions of the rising sea levels and media representations of low-lying atolls becoming uninhabitable and sinking are increasingly causing grave concerns to people living in atoll states. 
This thesis endeavours to examine the perceptions of the people of Tuvalu about climate change and sea level rise. Situated within the human geography theoretical framework, this study specifically explores the cultural and emotional geographies of Tuvaluans in relation to these phenomena. Cultural and national identities are the two pillars that embrace the study. 
In examining Tuvaluans’ perceptions, the study noticed that most people display a profound uncertainty about the future of their cultural heritage and the country’s national sovereignty. The emotions and affects of the people about their future are overwhelmingly touching and heartbreaking. As people who highly value coconut in their traditional ways of life, Tuvaluans’ perceptions are analogous to what I metaphorically call “coconut roots and coconut fruits”. Tuvaluans’ conception of sense of place is one that has very strong connections and attachment to their fenua or island or land like the coconut roots to the soil. However, Tuvaluans, like other Pacific islanders, are also voyagers and great explorers who have traversed the Pacific oceans for centuries like the “coconut fruits” that can drift in the ocean for long periods and become established once washed ashore. Yet, the encroaching effect of climate change and sea level rise is greatly reshaping the rootedness and/or fluidity of Tuvaluans.
Tuvaluans’ perceptions are greatly influenced by their religious beliefs. As citizens of a Christian atoll state, the majority of Tuvaluans firmly believe that the rainbow in Noah’s narrative is unequivocal. However, there is a new interpretation growing within the Tuvalu Christian Church leadership that casts doubt on this view and finds the rainbow starting to fade in their perception of climate change and sea level rise. Tuvaluans understand that they need to construct an ark – solution – to save the islands. Unless the world renders genuine support to the implementation of Tuvalu’s Climate Change Policy known as Te Kaniva, Tuvaluans will not be able to construct the ark and may well be displaced causing their identities to vanish in the passage of time.

year: 2017

title: Women (Un)Moored: Shirley Jackson's entropic female characters

authors: Grard, Pascale

subjects: Shirley Jackson

abstract: Shirley Jackson’s fiction presents an expansive catalogue of female characters who find themselves in eerie predicaments that they negotiate in interesting ways. This thesis explores the presentation of female characters in these predicaments. What roles do the female characters play in the stories they inhabit? What modes of escape do they employ from their predicaments? What makes their situations fundamentally anxious? To explore these questions, I examine the roles ascribed to female characters and their various responses to them. I inspect Jackson’s use of the ghost story and the fairy tale and the ways in which she engages with characteristic tropes to explore female agency. I interrogate anxieties about the self, and examine how these anxieties haunt many of the stories through their presentations of the female protagonists. These anxieties play out in the spaces that form and deform possibilities for women – the home, the suburb, the city – and through their allotted roles as wives, mothers, daughters, women alone. This study hopes to illuminate the entropic and anti-entropic nature of Jackson’s female characters: women variously unhinged by their roles or grounded by them. These women produce diverse reactions to oppressive situations as they negotiate their restrictive circumstances that simultaneously anchor and imprison them.

text: Women (Un)Moored: Shirley Jackson's entropic female characters Shirley Jackson’s fiction presents an expansive catalogue of female characters who find themselves in eerie predicaments that they negotiate in interesting ways. This thesis explores the presentation of female characters in these predicaments. What roles do the female characters play in the stories they inhabit? What modes of escape do they employ from their predicaments? What makes their situations fundamentally anxious? To explore these questions, I examine the roles ascribed to female characters and their various responses to them. I inspect Jackson’s use of the ghost story and the fairy tale and the ways in which she engages with characteristic tropes to explore female agency. I interrogate anxieties about the self, and examine how these anxieties haunt many of the stories through their presentations of the female protagonists. These anxieties play out in the spaces that form and deform possibilities for women – the home, the suburb, the city – and through their allotted roles as wives, mothers, daughters, women alone. This study hopes to illuminate the entropic and anti-entropic nature of Jackson’s female characters: women variously unhinged by their roles or grounded by them. These women produce diverse reactions to oppressive situations as they negotiate their restrictive circumstances that simultaneously anchor and imprison them.

year: 2022

title: Māori beekeepers: Reframing New Zealand’s apiculture narratives

authors: Dimitrov, Dara

abstract: New Zealand’s historical apiculture narratives are dominated by the colonial settlers' experiences of beekeeping, which marginalised Māori experiences.  This has perpetuated the notion that historically, Maori had little to do with beekeeping.  However, this article contests this notion and demonstrates that after the introduction of the western honeybee, Māori were active participants in the apiculture industry, both as traders and beekeepers.  Moreover, this article explores the current contributions that Māori beekeepers make to New Zealand’s apiculture industry but continue to be ignored by the apiculture industry.  Despite this, this article shows that Māori beekeepers are making important contributions in the apiculture research space, working with researchers and research institutions to explore climate change impacts, floral honey diversity in the native forests and aspects of honeybee colony health.

text: Māori beekeepers: Reframing New Zealand’s apiculture narratives New Zealand’s historical apiculture narratives are dominated by the colonial settlers' experiences of beekeeping, which marginalised Māori experiences.  This has perpetuated the notion that historically, Maori had little to do with beekeeping.  However, this article contests this notion and demonstrates that after the introduction of the western honeybee, Māori were active participants in the apiculture industry, both as traders and beekeepers.  Moreover, this article explores the current contributions that Māori beekeepers make to New Zealand’s apiculture industry but continue to be ignored by the apiculture industry.  Despite this, this article shows that Māori beekeepers are making important contributions in the apiculture research space, working with researchers and research institutions to explore climate change impacts, floral honey diversity in the native forests and aspects of honeybee colony health.

year: 2024