title: Women at stake: ideological cross-currents in misogyny and philogyny

authors: Seymour, Rosemary

abstract: This thesis investigates some relationships between a sociological population which manifests misogynous and philogynous behaviour, the sociological population towards which this behaviour is directed, and a third population which mediates relations between the first two. These populations are designated ‘ecclesiasticals’, ‘women’, and ‘new philosophers’, respectively. The focal period is the late Middle Ages, but extends backwards into remoter times.

The approach is interdisciplinary - especially through New History (particularly Women’s History); Philosophy (particularly developments in epistemology in this period); Literature (particularly aspects of metaphor and the genre of tragedy); and Sociology (particularly sociology of literature, sociology of women, and historical sociology). 

The method draws mainly on Lucien Goldmann’s genetic structuralism in sociology of literature and historical sociology. This interpretative method begins with an isolated empirical event (designated ‘abstract’); and proceeds to make it ‘concrete’ by relating it to other events, and to smaller and greater dynamic social structures. The process is oscillatory between two aspects of research: ‘comprehension’ of a selected event in terms of a latent structure discernible in it; and ‘understanding’ the structure discerned in terms of its dynamic, homologous relationship to contextual structures, and to an over-arching structure.

Two empirical events were the points of departure: persecution of women as witches/heretics and survival of goddess-worship. The event with a structure relating to both was Malleus Maleficarum [c1486, by Henry Kramer and James Sprenger). This was comprehended as a defensive reaction in a dogmatic structure; and understood in relation to threats in new developments in philosophy (especially nominalism, dialectic, and the new content), in women’s oral culture, and in over-arching structuration processes of transition from pre-modern to emergent modern.
 
There are six chapters.

CHAPTER ONE, INTRODUCTION outlines the substance and methods.

CHAPTER TWO, CONCEPTUAL PROLOGUE explicates the conceptual tools. 

CHAPTER THREE, COMPREHENSION presents a close reading of certain passages of Malleus Maleficarum, which reveals the latent structure. The main points in this are: women’s critical multiplicity, barrenness of theology, and fear of nature.

CHAPTER FOUR, UNDERSTANDING - (A) VIRTUALITY relates this structure to the theologians’ ‘virtuality’ of women and associated developments in philosophy.

CHAPTER FIVE, UNDERSTANDING - (B) POTENTIAL CONSCIOUSNESS looks at women in terms of facilitators and interceptors of their ‘potential consciousness’.

CHAPTER SIX, CONCLUSION summarises the links that have been discerned among the three populations, and suggests their relationships to the over-arching context.

The contribution made by this thesis is the construction of a theoretical framework for imaginative retrieval in an undocumented area, and the testing of its components. These components are: Goldmann’s basic hypothesis that all human behaviour tends towards consistent rational responses; the general hypothesis that women were agonist in history not passive; and the particular hypothesis that at least some aspects of the phenomenon of persecution of women as witches did not have a dispositional or hysterical base, but a rational one related to changes in content and methods of thought within the wider context of change from pre-modern to emergent modern.

It is concluded that use of this framework has illuminated empirical events and relationships; and that it may be used for further research in this and other obscure areas.

text: Women at stake: ideological cross-currents in misogyny and philogyny This thesis investigates some relationships between a sociological population which manifests misogynous and philogynous behaviour, the sociological population towards which this behaviour is directed, and a third population which mediates relations between the first two. These populations are designated ‘ecclesiasticals’, ‘women’, and ‘new philosophers’, respectively. The focal period is the late Middle Ages, but extends backwards into remoter times.

The approach is interdisciplinary - especially through New History (particularly Women’s History); Philosophy (particularly developments in epistemology in this period); Literature (particularly aspects of metaphor and the genre of tragedy); and Sociology (particularly sociology of literature, sociology of women, and historical sociology). 

The method draws mainly on Lucien Goldmann’s genetic structuralism in sociology of literature and historical sociology. This interpretative method begins with an isolated empirical event (designated ‘abstract’); and proceeds to make it ‘concrete’ by relating it to other events, and to smaller and greater dynamic social structures. The process is oscillatory between two aspects of research: ‘comprehension’ of a selected event in terms of a latent structure discernible in it; and ‘understanding’ the structure discerned in terms of its dynamic, homologous relationship to contextual structures, and to an over-arching structure.

Two empirical events were the points of departure: persecution of women as witches/heretics and survival of goddess-worship. The event with a structure relating to both was Malleus Maleficarum [c1486, by Henry Kramer and James Sprenger). This was comprehended as a defensive reaction in a dogmatic structure; and understood in relation to threats in new developments in philosophy (especially nominalism, dialectic, and the new content), in women’s oral culture, and in over-arching structuration processes of transition from pre-modern to emergent modern.
 
There are six chapters.

CHAPTER ONE, INTRODUCTION outlines the substance and methods.

CHAPTER TWO, CONCEPTUAL PROLOGUE explicates the conceptual tools. 

CHAPTER THREE, COMPREHENSION presents a close reading of certain passages of Malleus Maleficarum, which reveals the latent structure. The main points in this are: women’s critical multiplicity, barrenness of theology, and fear of nature.

CHAPTER FOUR, UNDERSTANDING - (A) VIRTUALITY relates this structure to the theologians’ ‘virtuality’ of women and associated developments in philosophy.

CHAPTER FIVE, UNDERSTANDING - (B) POTENTIAL CONSCIOUSNESS looks at women in terms of facilitators and interceptors of their ‘potential consciousness’.

CHAPTER SIX, CONCLUSION summarises the links that have been discerned among the three populations, and suggests their relationships to the over-arching context.

The contribution made by this thesis is the construction of a theoretical framework for imaginative retrieval in an undocumented area, and the testing of its components. These components are: Goldmann’s basic hypothesis that all human behaviour tends towards consistent rational responses; the general hypothesis that women were agonist in history not passive; and the particular hypothesis that at least some aspects of the phenomenon of persecution of women as witches did not have a dispositional or hysterical base, but a rational one related to changes in content and methods of thought within the wider context of change from pre-modern to emergent modern.

It is concluded that use of this framework has illuminated empirical events and relationships; and that it may be used for further research in this and other obscure areas.

year: 1981

title: Discursive constructions of teachers’ professional identities in early childhood policies and practice in Aotearoa New Zealand: Complexities and contradictions

authors: Kamenarac, Olivera

subjects: Early childhood policies

abstract: Over the last two decades, neo-liberal education reform has notably transformed the landscape of early childhood education and care (ECEC) in Aotearoa New Zealand. From an increasingly supportive approach, aiming to ensure access to and the participation of all children in quality ECEC provision, the country has swung towards a 'hands off' approach, which allowed the market to define who provides early childhood services, to whom and how. Increasing privatisation, competition and individualisation in the sector left teachers with many challenges, such as how to secure financial sustainability in the market and yet meet needs of children, families and community. The time of rapid transformation and challenge has also created an opportunity for teachers individually and the early childhood profession collectively to re-think their understanding of the purpose of ECEC, professionalism, and ways of ‘being’ a teacher and ‘doing’ early childhood education in the contemporary context of Aotearoa New Zealand. 
Drawing on a framework of poststructural discursive studies and theoretical ideas of feminist poststructuralists, this thesis examines discursive constructions of teachers’ professional identities in ECEC policies and practice in Aotearoa New Zealand over the last two decades. Through an analysis of some key ECEC policy documents, and collective and individual interviews with teachers, professional leaders and managers from both community-owned and for-profit services, the study shows the shaping of complementing and opposing discourses on teachers’ work and professional identities. 
The thesis argues that the Aotearoa New Zealand ECEC has been torn between tensions created through an interplay of divergent and opposing discursive windows, which set a powerful context for constructions of complex and fluid teachers’ professional identities. It shows that discursive windows of enterprise, economic investment and vulnerability have promoted competition, individualism, entrepreneurship and social-intervention emphases in the sector, and frequently overpowered discourses of collectivism, collegiality, and empowerment, in which democratic education and professionalism have been rooted. Through a constant struggle to resolve tensions among the confronting and yet simultaneously coexisting interests and priorities in ECEC, teachers need to constantly re-invent their professional selves. 
This thesis adds to the scholarship about possible impacts of policy developments on teachers’ professional identities specifically and the teaching profession generally. By discussing some complex issues in the Aotearoa New Zealand ECEC, the study contributes to an understanding of how contemporary early childhood discourses may weaken capacity for constructing advocate-activist teachers’ identities, which are both a priority and necessity in ECEC at times when the market drives teachers’ work, requiring them to favour for-profit and enterprise interests over the wellbeing of children, families and community. 
However, the study also gives us some hope that discourses of democratic education, which have been strongly embedded in the New Zealand Early Childhood Curriculum Te Whāriki and the sector’s political activism, could be used as a counterbalance to the discourses which have inhibited ECEC from being a more democratic, socially just and equitable place for all citizens. As being oddly in the contrast to the increasing dominance of the privatised and market-led provision, this study suggests that the curriculum’s discourses and the discourses of political activism constitute a powerful foundation that could move teachers towards constructing advocate-activist professional identities and teaching profession in the Aotearoa New Zealand ECEC.

text: Discursive constructions of teachers’ professional identities in early childhood policies and practice in Aotearoa New Zealand: Complexities and contradictions Over the last two decades, neo-liberal education reform has notably transformed the landscape of early childhood education and care (ECEC) in Aotearoa New Zealand. From an increasingly supportive approach, aiming to ensure access to and the participation of all children in quality ECEC provision, the country has swung towards a 'hands off' approach, which allowed the market to define who provides early childhood services, to whom and how. Increasing privatisation, competition and individualisation in the sector left teachers with many challenges, such as how to secure financial sustainability in the market and yet meet needs of children, families and community. The time of rapid transformation and challenge has also created an opportunity for teachers individually and the early childhood profession collectively to re-think their understanding of the purpose of ECEC, professionalism, and ways of ‘being’ a teacher and ‘doing’ early childhood education in the contemporary context of Aotearoa New Zealand. 
Drawing on a framework of poststructural discursive studies and theoretical ideas of feminist poststructuralists, this thesis examines discursive constructions of teachers’ professional identities in ECEC policies and practice in Aotearoa New Zealand over the last two decades. Through an analysis of some key ECEC policy documents, and collective and individual interviews with teachers, professional leaders and managers from both community-owned and for-profit services, the study shows the shaping of complementing and opposing discourses on teachers’ work and professional identities. 
The thesis argues that the Aotearoa New Zealand ECEC has been torn between tensions created through an interplay of divergent and opposing discursive windows, which set a powerful context for constructions of complex and fluid teachers’ professional identities. It shows that discursive windows of enterprise, economic investment and vulnerability have promoted competition, individualism, entrepreneurship and social-intervention emphases in the sector, and frequently overpowered discourses of collectivism, collegiality, and empowerment, in which democratic education and professionalism have been rooted. Through a constant struggle to resolve tensions among the confronting and yet simultaneously coexisting interests and priorities in ECEC, teachers need to constantly re-invent their professional selves. 
This thesis adds to the scholarship about possible impacts of policy developments on teachers’ professional identities specifically and the teaching profession generally. By discussing some complex issues in the Aotearoa New Zealand ECEC, the study contributes to an understanding of how contemporary early childhood discourses may weaken capacity for constructing advocate-activist teachers’ identities, which are both a priority and necessity in ECEC at times when the market drives teachers’ work, requiring them to favour for-profit and enterprise interests over the wellbeing of children, families and community. 
However, the study also gives us some hope that discourses of democratic education, which have been strongly embedded in the New Zealand Early Childhood Curriculum Te Whāriki and the sector’s political activism, could be used as a counterbalance to the discourses which have inhibited ECEC from being a more democratic, socially just and equitable place for all citizens. As being oddly in the contrast to the increasing dominance of the privatised and market-led provision, this study suggests that the curriculum’s discourses and the discourses of political activism constitute a powerful foundation that could move teachers towards constructing advocate-activist professional identities and teaching profession in the Aotearoa New Zealand ECEC.

year: 2019

title: Paremias xeocosmolóxicas de predición do tempo en galego e maorí (Geocosmologic paroemias of weather prediction in Galician and Maori)

authors: Lopez-Fernandez, Laura

abstract: This comparative study collects phraseological units -dictons- (Rodegem 1984 e Sevilla Muñoz 1988; 1992) related to the semantic field of weather forecast from two cultures, which have not been in contact, and which are located in the antipodes of the planet: Galician and Maori. The methodology used utilizes a diachronic analysis (although not diastratic), of geocosmological proverbs, that can be or not in use nowadays, which include dictons about atmospheric phenomena, observation of the stars and star lore, and weather forecast through observation of animals, especially birds. The dictons collected in Maori do not come from informants but from the few books and digital sources available at the moment and this represents only a fragment of their traditional oral culture, thought and legacy of the different iwis. The collected dictons in Galician have been collected from a variety of digital corpus and resources.

text: Paremias xeocosmolóxicas de predición do tempo en galego e maorí (Geocosmologic paroemias of weather prediction in Galician and Maori) This comparative study collects phraseological units -dictons- (Rodegem 1984 e Sevilla Muñoz 1988; 1992) related to the semantic field of weather forecast from two cultures, which have not been in contact, and which are located in the antipodes of the planet: Galician and Maori. The methodology used utilizes a diachronic analysis (although not diastratic), of geocosmological proverbs, that can be or not in use nowadays, which include dictons about atmospheric phenomena, observation of the stars and star lore, and weather forecast through observation of animals, especially birds. The dictons collected in Maori do not come from informants but from the few books and digital sources available at the moment and this represents only a fragment of their traditional oral culture, thought and legacy of the different iwis. The collected dictons in Galician have been collected from a variety of digital corpus and resources.

year: 2015