title: Using Skype to mother: bodies, emotions, visuality, and screens

authors: Longhurst, Robyn

subjects: mothering

abstract: This research examines how a group of mothers in Hamilton, Aotearoa New Zealand are developing and maintaining emotional and familial links with their children of a variety of ages via video calls using Skype. More specifically it seeks to deepen understanding of how seeing one’s child or children as part of the communication affects mothers’ feelings towards their children. The research is informed by Sara Ahmed’s work on ‘queer phenomenology’ and the ‘cultural politics of emotions’, which enabled a critical engagement on mothers’ and children’s embodied and emotional relationships via screens that convey ‘real-time’ images. Interviews with thirty-five mothers, twenty-four of whom use Skype to contact their children or maintain contact with their own mothers, revealed that the dwelling places of bodies are no longer just rooms in homes where mothers, and children’s flesh and emotions rub up against each other on a daily basis but screens across which voices and, even more importantly, images are shared. More than half the mothers who were interviewed reported that using Skype with real-time video to see their children reduced feelings of distance. They also reported that ‘seeing’ their child or children enables them to assess their children’s well-being more accurately. In this way the computer screen, as object, by portraying moving visual images, is ‘reorientating’ mothers’ and children’s bodies offering a seemingly closer physical and emotional proximity than in the past.

text: Using Skype to mother: bodies, emotions, visuality, and screens This research examines how a group of mothers in Hamilton, Aotearoa New Zealand are developing and maintaining emotional and familial links with their children of a variety of ages via video calls using Skype. More specifically it seeks to deepen understanding of how seeing one’s child or children as part of the communication affects mothers’ feelings towards their children. The research is informed by Sara Ahmed’s work on ‘queer phenomenology’ and the ‘cultural politics of emotions’, which enabled a critical engagement on mothers’ and children’s embodied and emotional relationships via screens that convey ‘real-time’ images. Interviews with thirty-five mothers, twenty-four of whom use Skype to contact their children or maintain contact with their own mothers, revealed that the dwelling places of bodies are no longer just rooms in homes where mothers, and children’s flesh and emotions rub up against each other on a daily basis but screens across which voices and, even more importantly, images are shared. More than half the mothers who were interviewed reported that using Skype with real-time video to see their children reduced feelings of distance. They also reported that ‘seeing’ their child or children enables them to assess their children’s well-being more accurately. In this way the computer screen, as object, by portraying moving visual images, is ‘reorientating’ mothers’ and children’s bodies offering a seemingly closer physical and emotional proximity than in the past.

year: 2013

title: An estimation of the concentration of atmospheric nitrous oxide containing complexes

authors: Salmon, Steven Ray

abstract: Nitrous oxide (N₂O) is one of the major greenhouse gases responsible for climate change. It also has impacts on the removal of ozone (O₃) from the atmosphere and is now the single most important ozone depleting substance. Atmospheric N₂O primarily comes from bacterial denitrification processes in soils, a process which is augmented by many agricultural practices. As a result of the large amount of agricultural land in New Zealand, emissions of N₂O are disproportionately high for our population.
Nitrous oxide is primarily removed from the atmosphere via a photodissociation process, involving photons between 180 - 230 nm. The process of photodisociation involves the bending of the linear structure of the N₂O molecule, which allows for photodisociation to proceed. The presence of other gas molecules, such as those that we are investigating in our complexes, peturbs the bending mode of N₂O, which is throught to alter the photodisociation rate.
In this work we investigate the weakly bound complexes of N₂O with the major atmospheric molecules, namely N₂, O₂, Ar and H₂O. We use explicitly correlated coupled cluster theory to determine interaction energy, vibrational frequencies and rotational constants of the four complexes. This data is then used in combination with the standard statistical mechanics equations to determine the equilibrium constant of formation for each complex as a function of altitude. Finally the abundance profile of each complex is determined using the atmospheric concentrations of the constituent monomers.

text: An estimation of the concentration of atmospheric nitrous oxide containing complexes Nitrous oxide (N₂O) is one of the major greenhouse gases responsible for climate change. It also has impacts on the removal of ozone (O₃) from the atmosphere and is now the single most important ozone depleting substance. Atmospheric N₂O primarily comes from bacterial denitrification processes in soils, a process which is augmented by many agricultural practices. As a result of the large amount of agricultural land in New Zealand, emissions of N₂O are disproportionately high for our population.
Nitrous oxide is primarily removed from the atmosphere via a photodissociation process, involving photons between 180 - 230 nm. The process of photodisociation involves the bending of the linear structure of the N₂O molecule, which allows for photodisociation to proceed. The presence of other gas molecules, such as those that we are investigating in our complexes, peturbs the bending mode of N₂O, which is throught to alter the photodisociation rate.
In this work we investigate the weakly bound complexes of N₂O with the major atmospheric molecules, namely N₂, O₂, Ar and H₂O. We use explicitly correlated coupled cluster theory to determine interaction energy, vibrational frequencies and rotational constants of the four complexes. This data is then used in combination with the standard statistical mechanics equations to determine the equilibrium constant of formation for each complex as a function of altitude. Finally the abundance profile of each complex is determined using the atmospheric concentrations of the constituent monomers.

year: 2015

title: Ngā Pakanga mō Wāhi Tapu: Battles over sacred places

authors: Joseph, Robert

abstract: Wāhi tapu are the sacred places of Māori in Aotearoa New Zealand. All cultures have sacred sites such as cemeteries, significant battlefields, and places of spiritual significance. Standout examples internationally include the ‘Weeping Wall’ in the Holy Land, Stonehenge in Britain, Maraeātea in the Pacific, and Intihuatana at Macchu Picchu in Peru. But unlike these sites, wāhi tapu are rarely a visible structure but rather a site or area within the landscape with values so significant that restrictions are warranted. In law, wāhi tapu are defined as a ‘place of special significance according to tikanga Māori’
 and ‘a place sacred to Māori in the traditional, spiritual, religious, ritual, or mythological sense’.
As the aphorism above emphasises, Māori historically were willing to die for land (and for women of course!), and wāhi tapu are the most sacred of places. Many battles have been fought over actual or proposed transgressions of their sacredness. In earlier years, blood was shed and men did die; today battles tend to occur in the Environment Court, but are just as passionate. Recent decades have seen conflicts where wāhi tapu were threatened by new highways, railroads, airports, prisons, residential and commercial developments, wind farms, power stations and waste dumps.
In this chapter, I discuss a number of the battles that have been fought over the development or preservation of wāhi tapu from first European contact up until the present time. I highlight the growing legal recognition of tikanga Māori in relation to these sacred landscapes, and conclude with a proposed pragmatic solution for all New Zealanders when negotiating developments over wāhi tapu. Having a
background in law and tribal affiliations, I discuss these tensions from both legal and kaupapa Māori perspectives.

text: Ngā Pakanga mō Wāhi Tapu: Battles over sacred places Wāhi tapu are the sacred places of Māori in Aotearoa New Zealand. All cultures have sacred sites such as cemeteries, significant battlefields, and places of spiritual significance. Standout examples internationally include the ‘Weeping Wall’ in the Holy Land, Stonehenge in Britain, Maraeātea in the Pacific, and Intihuatana at Macchu Picchu in Peru. But unlike these sites, wāhi tapu are rarely a visible structure but rather a site or area within the landscape with values so significant that restrictions are warranted. In law, wāhi tapu are defined as a ‘place of special significance according to tikanga Māori’
 and ‘a place sacred to Māori in the traditional, spiritual, religious, ritual, or mythological sense’.
As the aphorism above emphasises, Māori historically were willing to die for land (and for women of course!), and wāhi tapu are the most sacred of places. Many battles have been fought over actual or proposed transgressions of their sacredness. In earlier years, blood was shed and men did die; today battles tend to occur in the Environment Court, but are just as passionate. Recent decades have seen conflicts where wāhi tapu were threatened by new highways, railroads, airports, prisons, residential and commercial developments, wind farms, power stations and waste dumps.
In this chapter, I discuss a number of the battles that have been fought over the development or preservation of wāhi tapu from first European contact up until the present time. I highlight the growing legal recognition of tikanga Māori in relation to these sacred landscapes, and conclude with a proposed pragmatic solution for all New Zealanders when negotiating developments over wāhi tapu. Having a
background in law and tribal affiliations, I discuss these tensions from both legal and kaupapa Māori perspectives.

year: 2011