title: Local Voices, Local Choices? Vulnerability to Climate Change and Community-Based Adaptation in Rural Vanuatu

authors: Warrick, Olivia C.

subjects: Vanuatu

abstract: This thesis focuses on community-based adaptation to climate change (CBA) in a rural, Pacific islands context. It is informed by a case study of Mota Lava, a small island in northern Vanuatu. Climate change poses particular challenges for Pacific island communities, who, in general, are largely natural resource dependent, coastal dwelling and experience high climate variability and extremes. This thesis responds to the lack of critical attention paid to dominant understandings of how to implement adaptation to climate change in a way that best serves the needs of local people. The research addresses the dearth of Pacific local voices in mainstream international adaptation knowledge, therefore contributing to more effective CBA projects and programmes in the region. The features that distinguish effective CBA are that it: reduces vulnerability; is participatory; is based on local knowledge, needs and priorities, and; empowers communities to help themselves in adapting to climate change. Situated in critical human geography, the study examines mainstream international discourses of vulnerability and adaptation, and the implications of these for effective CBA implementation in a Pacific island community context. Qualitative research drawing from participatory and postcolonial theories provides a platform for community voices in Vanuatu. A combination of semi-structured interviews, unstructured interviews, participatory techniques and participant observation were used to investigate the ways in which people construct their vulnerability and adaptation needs in the community of Mota Lava. The research revealed tensions between local and mainstream constructions of vulnerability and therefore, adaptation needs. Local people construct vulnerability to climate change as caused by predominantly social factors and processes. Mechanisms for minimising the negative implications of a range of climate stresses and uncertainties are integrated into livelihoods, society and culture. However, this (considerable) adaptive capacity is threatened by aspects of social change stemming from non-local processes of (under)development. Effective CBA requires community-led development initiatives, targeting social processes at the core of increasing community vulnerability. However, in mainstream international discourse, vulnerability to climate change is constructed as being caused by specific climate stimuli, their biophysical impacts and the ability to directly respond to these. As a result, CBA implementation in the region is characterized by technical measures that reactively respond to particular climate impacts rather than proactively reducing vulnerability. The mainstream adaptation discourse limits the effectiveness of CBA for communities like Mota Lava, where the causes of vulnerability are primarily social.

text: Local Voices, Local Choices? Vulnerability to Climate Change and Community-Based Adaptation in Rural Vanuatu This thesis focuses on community-based adaptation to climate change (CBA) in a rural, Pacific islands context. It is informed by a case study of Mota Lava, a small island in northern Vanuatu. Climate change poses particular challenges for Pacific island communities, who, in general, are largely natural resource dependent, coastal dwelling and experience high climate variability and extremes. This thesis responds to the lack of critical attention paid to dominant understandings of how to implement adaptation to climate change in a way that best serves the needs of local people. The research addresses the dearth of Pacific local voices in mainstream international adaptation knowledge, therefore contributing to more effective CBA projects and programmes in the region. The features that distinguish effective CBA are that it: reduces vulnerability; is participatory; is based on local knowledge, needs and priorities, and; empowers communities to help themselves in adapting to climate change. Situated in critical human geography, the study examines mainstream international discourses of vulnerability and adaptation, and the implications of these for effective CBA implementation in a Pacific island community context. Qualitative research drawing from participatory and postcolonial theories provides a platform for community voices in Vanuatu. A combination of semi-structured interviews, unstructured interviews, participatory techniques and participant observation were used to investigate the ways in which people construct their vulnerability and adaptation needs in the community of Mota Lava. The research revealed tensions between local and mainstream constructions of vulnerability and therefore, adaptation needs. Local people construct vulnerability to climate change as caused by predominantly social factors and processes. Mechanisms for minimising the negative implications of a range of climate stresses and uncertainties are integrated into livelihoods, society and culture. However, this (considerable) adaptive capacity is threatened by aspects of social change stemming from non-local processes of (under)development. Effective CBA requires community-led development initiatives, targeting social processes at the core of increasing community vulnerability. However, in mainstream international discourse, vulnerability to climate change is constructed as being caused by specific climate stimuli, their biophysical impacts and the ability to directly respond to these. As a result, CBA implementation in the region is characterized by technical measures that reactively respond to particular climate impacts rather than proactively reducing vulnerability. The mainstream adaptation discourse limits the effectiveness of CBA for communities like Mota Lava, where the causes of vulnerability are primarily social.

year: 2011

title: Childfree couples' experiences of stereotyping, harassment and pressure

authors: Riley, Theresa Mary

subjects: childfree

abstract: This qualitative study is about New Zealand couples who, by choice, do not have children. Strong social norms exist for couples to have children, and those who express a desire to do otherwise have been disbelieved, pressured, and stereotyped. Womanhood has continued to be associated with motherhood, and a maternal instinct is expected to drive women to have children. The aim of this research was to add to knowledge and awareness of how childfree people have experienced being stereotyped, pressured and harassed for being childfree. For this research, I conjointly interviewed ten heterosexual, childfree couples residing in the city of Hamilton. Participants self-identified as childfree, and ranged in age from 23 to 56 years old. Five of the couples also participated in a focus group. Participants related the ways in which they perceived that the wider social context played a role in the negative responses they experienced. Participants revealed how they felt less socially valued through: an idealization of parenthood, exclusion from work benefits, and an expectation that women should manage both employment and motherhood. Stereotyping was found to still occur, with participants reporting that they were labelled as selfish, immature, and anti-children. Stereotypes of being destined for loneliness in later life, and of their pets being substitutes for children were common. Some evidence was found in participants' comments that there were elements of truth in stereotypes of the childfree. The negative stereotyping appeared to have little, if any, impact on how participants viewed or felt about themselves. Participants reported feeling harassed by other people's disbelief in their choice, and assumptions, that despite what they said, everybody wanted children. The pressures experienced by participants took various forms, such as persistent questioning, and came from various sources, including siblings and acquaintances. Participants' reports of feeling pressured or harassed seem to reflect minor and fleeting feelings, rather than a continuing concern. How pressuring comments were perceived by the recipient was very context-dependent. Participants tolerated and coped with people's negative responses by various methods, such as confronting, ignoring, and avoiding the topic of children with certain people. I recommend that further research be done, and that work is needed to promote both acceptance of the childfree option, and freedom of women's identification from association with childbearing.

text: Childfree couples' experiences of stereotyping, harassment and pressure This qualitative study is about New Zealand couples who, by choice, do not have children. Strong social norms exist for couples to have children, and those who express a desire to do otherwise have been disbelieved, pressured, and stereotyped. Womanhood has continued to be associated with motherhood, and a maternal instinct is expected to drive women to have children. The aim of this research was to add to knowledge and awareness of how childfree people have experienced being stereotyped, pressured and harassed for being childfree. For this research, I conjointly interviewed ten heterosexual, childfree couples residing in the city of Hamilton. Participants self-identified as childfree, and ranged in age from 23 to 56 years old. Five of the couples also participated in a focus group. Participants related the ways in which they perceived that the wider social context played a role in the negative responses they experienced. Participants revealed how they felt less socially valued through: an idealization of parenthood, exclusion from work benefits, and an expectation that women should manage both employment and motherhood. Stereotyping was found to still occur, with participants reporting that they were labelled as selfish, immature, and anti-children. Stereotypes of being destined for loneliness in later life, and of their pets being substitutes for children were common. Some evidence was found in participants' comments that there were elements of truth in stereotypes of the childfree. The negative stereotyping appeared to have little, if any, impact on how participants viewed or felt about themselves. Participants reported feeling harassed by other people's disbelief in their choice, and assumptions, that despite what they said, everybody wanted children. The pressures experienced by participants took various forms, such as persistent questioning, and came from various sources, including siblings and acquaintances. Participants' reports of feeling pressured or harassed seem to reflect minor and fleeting feelings, rather than a continuing concern. How pressuring comments were perceived by the recipient was very context-dependent. Participants tolerated and coped with people's negative responses by various methods, such as confronting, ignoring, and avoiding the topic of children with certain people. I recommend that further research be done, and that work is needed to promote both acceptance of the childfree option, and freedom of women's identification from association with childbearing.

year: 2008

title: Street-level bureaucracy and occupational therapy practices in Aotearoa New Zealand. A genealogical critique.

authors: Silcock, Elizabeth Mary

subjects: power

abstract: As a human science that is also part of administering and supporting bureaucracy, occupational therapy functions in multi-layered networks of power  that support many different social structures. Occupational therapists’ work often involves operationalising health, education and social services at the street-level, positioning them between the aspirations of both policy and social activism and material life outcomes. Through a genealogical critique, this thesis problematises the practice of occupational therapy through a Foucauldian lens that views everything as dangerous. By viewing occupational therapy practice as dangerous, the power relations at the street-level of the mundane and taken-for-granted have been problematised as part of much larger social structures of power and discourse. 
Several Foucauldian tools were deployed in order to ensure that a focus on occupational therapy practices was maintained; three distinct research methods were utilised to access a range of heterogeneous genealogical information.  Firstly, an historical archival analysis of the four iterations of the Competencies for Registration for occupational therapists document (1990 to the current day) produced by the regulatory authority, the Occupational Therapy Board of New Zealand, was carried out.  Secondly, practice observations of occupational therapists working in different practice settings were analysed as three individual case studies. Concurrently with these two methods, a critical action method using a research blog was developed to create a medium for public discussion of practice through an open engagement with the profession. The combination of these three methods enabled access to a range of elements for analysis.  Many of these elements inter-linked, overlapped and connected to historically contingent networks of dominant power that have formed through the processes of colonisation, the establishment of the health system and normalised medical practices, and economic forms of governance. The nuances of how occupational therapy is practised at the street-level offered opportunities to contest the dominance of these networks. In all three case studies there was an unspoken understanding and a normalisation of materiality as an accepted and significant element of how the profession practised.  The material regimes of knowledge and material practices in these unspoken norms were highly productive and able to contest other lines of power.  Along with this alternate network of power, the most recent version of the Competencies for Registration offers a further opportunity for occupational therapists to contest dominant power relations in a way that could capitalise on the secure position the profession has developed through its material network of power.  Opportunities for alternate pathways of practice which privilege Te Ao Māori and Te Tiriti o Waitangi are a possibility in the legally sanctioned Competencies. The close connection of occupational therapy practices to real life material outcomes for other people, position the street-level doing of occupational therapists at a juncture where action and decision making can re-configure power relations. Re-thinking practice in terms of what the doing of occupational therapy does in relation to networks of power, is an opportunity for practitioners to enact policy at the street-level in ways that use their ability to influence power from the bottom up whilst being alert to the dangers presented by doing so.

text: Street-level bureaucracy and occupational therapy practices in Aotearoa New Zealand. A genealogical critique. As a human science that is also part of administering and supporting bureaucracy, occupational therapy functions in multi-layered networks of power  that support many different social structures. Occupational therapists’ work often involves operationalising health, education and social services at the street-level, positioning them between the aspirations of both policy and social activism and material life outcomes. Through a genealogical critique, this thesis problematises the practice of occupational therapy through a Foucauldian lens that views everything as dangerous. By viewing occupational therapy practice as dangerous, the power relations at the street-level of the mundane and taken-for-granted have been problematised as part of much larger social structures of power and discourse. 
Several Foucauldian tools were deployed in order to ensure that a focus on occupational therapy practices was maintained; three distinct research methods were utilised to access a range of heterogeneous genealogical information.  Firstly, an historical archival analysis of the four iterations of the Competencies for Registration for occupational therapists document (1990 to the current day) produced by the regulatory authority, the Occupational Therapy Board of New Zealand, was carried out.  Secondly, practice observations of occupational therapists working in different practice settings were analysed as three individual case studies. Concurrently with these two methods, a critical action method using a research blog was developed to create a medium for public discussion of practice through an open engagement with the profession. The combination of these three methods enabled access to a range of elements for analysis.  Many of these elements inter-linked, overlapped and connected to historically contingent networks of dominant power that have formed through the processes of colonisation, the establishment of the health system and normalised medical practices, and economic forms of governance. The nuances of how occupational therapy is practised at the street-level offered opportunities to contest the dominance of these networks. In all three case studies there was an unspoken understanding and a normalisation of materiality as an accepted and significant element of how the profession practised.  The material regimes of knowledge and material practices in these unspoken norms were highly productive and able to contest other lines of power.  Along with this alternate network of power, the most recent version of the Competencies for Registration offers a further opportunity for occupational therapists to contest dominant power relations in a way that could capitalise on the secure position the profession has developed through its material network of power.  Opportunities for alternate pathways of practice which privilege Te Ao Māori and Te Tiriti o Waitangi are a possibility in the legally sanctioned Competencies. The close connection of occupational therapy practices to real life material outcomes for other people, position the street-level doing of occupational therapists at a juncture where action and decision making can re-configure power relations. Re-thinking practice in terms of what the doing of occupational therapy does in relation to networks of power, is an opportunity for practitioners to enact policy at the street-level in ways that use their ability to influence power from the bottom up whilst being alert to the dangers presented by doing so.

year: 2018