title: Things inside things

authors: Thornley, Jessica

abstract: Things Inside Things is a collection of autofiction that revolves around a single mother and her two young daughters. It is at once an intimate account of single motherhood and an ode to, a call to arms for, the maternal bond as irreducible, sacred–the thing at the centre of all things. 

Made up of fragmentary scenes, poetic prose, and short stories, the narrative moves back and forth in time, across hemispheres, through shifting points of view and recurrent characters   painting readers into the living and breathing layers of one single mother’s experience and world. 

Taking inspiration from writers Katherine Mansfield and Lucia Berlin, Things Inside Things bucks linear plot convention for a form that is voiced, sensory and shaped by the physicality of emotion. 

If this is a collection that advocates for the joy, reward and importance of the mother-child bond it is also one in which that bond does not come easy. Inside the walls and skin of these stories a mother seeks help for chronic maternal anxiety, navigates the loss of relationship break down with her children’s father, holds space for paternal and cultural ties that must span distance, be sustained over Zoom calls, and navigates the emotional and material weight of mothering alone. 

Above all this is body of work that seeks to hold ordinary, domestic days to the light. That pays homage to the everyday maternal and relational moments of connection, rupture and repair that shape who we are and can–if we let them–transform us. These are not stories of martyrdom. Rather, they give us motherhood as a creative, radical and transcendent force. Where a daughter’s ‘sturdy seven-year-old legs with downy hairs intact and lit up are holier than all the Gods of all religions’, where female friendship is a haven of ‘light, smile lines, vast and loyal as the seasons’ and within which we witness a mother, a woman, a writer finding herself on the page.

text: Things inside things Things Inside Things is a collection of autofiction that revolves around a single mother and her two young daughters. It is at once an intimate account of single motherhood and an ode to, a call to arms for, the maternal bond as irreducible, sacred–the thing at the centre of all things. 

Made up of fragmentary scenes, poetic prose, and short stories, the narrative moves back and forth in time, across hemispheres, through shifting points of view and recurrent characters   painting readers into the living and breathing layers of one single mother’s experience and world. 

Taking inspiration from writers Katherine Mansfield and Lucia Berlin, Things Inside Things bucks linear plot convention for a form that is voiced, sensory and shaped by the physicality of emotion. 

If this is a collection that advocates for the joy, reward and importance of the mother-child bond it is also one in which that bond does not come easy. Inside the walls and skin of these stories a mother seeks help for chronic maternal anxiety, navigates the loss of relationship break down with her children’s father, holds space for paternal and cultural ties that must span distance, be sustained over Zoom calls, and navigates the emotional and material weight of mothering alone. 

Above all this is body of work that seeks to hold ordinary, domestic days to the light. That pays homage to the everyday maternal and relational moments of connection, rupture and repair that shape who we are and can–if we let them–transform us. These are not stories of martyrdom. Rather, they give us motherhood as a creative, radical and transcendent force. Where a daughter’s ‘sturdy seven-year-old legs with downy hairs intact and lit up are holier than all the Gods of all religions’, where female friendship is a haven of ‘light, smile lines, vast and loyal as the seasons’ and within which we witness a mother, a woman, a writer finding herself on the page.

year: 2024-11-15

title: Perceptual outcomes as reinforcers

authors: Sumpter, Catherine E.

subjects: psychology

abstract: The paucity of basic behavioral research with humans was highlighted almost 40 years ago (Findley, 1966). A recent search of the basic behavioral research journals by the present authors indicated that this situation remains, with only approximately 15% of the research using human participants. It may seem surprising that so few studies use human participants given the apparent practical advantages of doing so. Human participants are readily available, extensively pre-trained, can use a range of complex apparatus and require no feeding or housing. In reality, however, the use of human participants involves a number of practical difficulties: humans generally will not agree to participate in research involving a large number of sessions or sessions lasting more than two to three hours; it is difficult to gain within-session compliance as a result of the often repetitive and simplistic nature of the tasks; and it is often unclear whether the experimental results are a product of the experimentally-arranged contingencies or the instructions given to the participants. Another difficulty, that which is addressed here, lies in the identification of a suitable experimental outcome that will serve as a reinforcer.

text: Perceptual outcomes as reinforcers The paucity of basic behavioral research with humans was highlighted almost 40 years ago (Findley, 1966). A recent search of the basic behavioral research journals by the present authors indicated that this situation remains, with only approximately 15% of the research using human participants. It may seem surprising that so few studies use human participants given the apparent practical advantages of doing so. Human participants are readily available, extensively pre-trained, can use a range of complex apparatus and require no feeding or housing. In reality, however, the use of human participants involves a number of practical difficulties: humans generally will not agree to participate in research involving a large number of sessions or sessions lasting more than two to three hours; it is difficult to gain within-session compliance as a result of the often repetitive and simplistic nature of the tasks; and it is often unclear whether the experimental results are a product of the experimentally-arranged contingencies or the instructions given to the participants. Another difficulty, that which is addressed here, lies in the identification of a suitable experimental outcome that will serve as a reinforcer.

year: 2003

title: From the rākau to the ngākau

authors: Derby, Melissa

subjects: research

abstract: The Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE) in Aotearoa New Zealand has funded 11 National Science Challenges (NSC), which aim to tackle a series of big questions affecting wellbeing in society. One Challenge, A Better Start: E Tipu E Rea, is investigating four key focus areas that children encounter in their early development and is seeking to identify the factors that contribute to forming a solid foundation for fostering wellbeing and lifelong success. Central to the principles of this Challenge is the Treaty of Waitangi in that the Treaty provides a framework to guide whānau engagement, policy change, and praxis. This article describes how a ‘ngākau’ rather than a ‘rākau’ approach to shaping research inquiry within this Challenge facilitates more authentic and mana-enhancing whānau engagement in research interactions (Macfarlane, 2019). The development of a whānau questionnaire is drawn on to illustrate the ngākau approach in practice.

text: From the rākau to the ngākau The Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE) in Aotearoa New Zealand has funded 11 National Science Challenges (NSC), which aim to tackle a series of big questions affecting wellbeing in society. One Challenge, A Better Start: E Tipu E Rea, is investigating four key focus areas that children encounter in their early development and is seeking to identify the factors that contribute to forming a solid foundation for fostering wellbeing and lifelong success. Central to the principles of this Challenge is the Treaty of Waitangi in that the Treaty provides a framework to guide whānau engagement, policy change, and praxis. This article describes how a ‘ngākau’ rather than a ‘rākau’ approach to shaping research inquiry within this Challenge facilitates more authentic and mana-enhancing whānau engagement in research interactions (Macfarlane, 2019). The development of a whānau questionnaire is drawn on to illustrate the ngākau approach in practice.

year: 2021