title: ‘It’s on the tip of my Google’: Intra-active performance and the non-totalising learning environment

authors: Snake-Beings, Emit

subjects: Assemblage, decentralised learning environment, interactive performance, noise music, non-totalising, sound culture

abstract: Technologies that expand the learning environment to include interactions outside of the physical space of the classroom, such as the use of Google as an aid to memory, represent one aspect of learning that occurs within several seemingly decentralised spaces. On the other hand, it can be argued that such interactive technologies are enclosed in what Bruno Latour calls a ‘Black-box’: a ‘totalising’ enclosure that delimits interaction and channels users towards yet another form of centralised learning space. Used as a starting point, the focus of this article rapidly shifts from the constraints of the ‘Black-box’ towards a type of engagement that embraces material agency: an engagement with materials and fragments of knowledge that emerge from the ‘non-totalising’ assemblage. To assist in this trajectory, Karen Barad’s concept of intra-activity is employed, where agency is seen as distributed between human and non-human actants. The space in which this engagement between human and materials occurs, as a non-totalising learning space, is the concern of this article, which uses an interactive audio/visual performance event called Bingodisiac as a case study to examine various ways in which we can learn to move beyond the constraints of totalising structures. Bingodisiac is a project initiated by the researcher in 2002, as an informal collection of musicians who are assembled for a one-off improvised performance. This article draws upon interviews and journal notes collected at the time of the performances to explore the analogy of ‘noise music’ and how this can be related to ways in which the learning space of the classroom and the types of knowledge produced have become decentralised.

text: ‘It’s on the tip of my Google’: Intra-active performance and the non-totalising learning environment Technologies that expand the learning environment to include interactions outside of the physical space of the classroom, such as the use of Google as an aid to memory, represent one aspect of learning that occurs within several seemingly decentralised spaces. On the other hand, it can be argued that such interactive technologies are enclosed in what Bruno Latour calls a ‘Black-box’: a ‘totalising’ enclosure that delimits interaction and channels users towards yet another form of centralised learning space. Used as a starting point, the focus of this article rapidly shifts from the constraints of the ‘Black-box’ towards a type of engagement that embraces material agency: an engagement with materials and fragments of knowledge that emerge from the ‘non-totalising’ assemblage. To assist in this trajectory, Karen Barad’s concept of intra-activity is employed, where agency is seen as distributed between human and non-human actants. The space in which this engagement between human and materials occurs, as a non-totalising learning space, is the concern of this article, which uses an interactive audio/visual performance event called Bingodisiac as a case study to examine various ways in which we can learn to move beyond the constraints of totalising structures. Bingodisiac is a project initiated by the researcher in 2002, as an informal collection of musicians who are assembled for a one-off improvised performance. This article draws upon interviews and journal notes collected at the time of the performances to explore the analogy of ‘noise music’ and how this can be related to ways in which the learning space of the classroom and the types of knowledge produced have become decentralised.

year: 2017

title: Coming home through football: A geographic exploration of long-distance fandom

authors: Baker, Tegan Alexandra

subjects: geography

abstract: This thesis focuses on the relationship between long-distance football fandom and home. It examines how the act of supporting non-domestic football clubs is a symbolic and material connection to multiple scales of home for 32 long-distance football fans, aged between 17–65, who live in Aotearoa New Zealand. I argue that football fans and homes are mutually constituted and continually reproduced through football fandom practices. Examining fan practice from the scale of the body through to the globe demonstrates how multiple homes interplay with fan practice. Literature on home and literature on sport have not yet been combined by scholars. Drawing these two bodies of work together offers the opportunity to unpack fans’ relationships to ‘things’, between ‘people’ and to ‘places’, providing a window into critical geographies of identities.
Social, cultural, feminist and emotional geographies of home and qualitative research methods frame this research. A range of methods are combined to create a holistic view of the complex and messy relationships which construct fan identities and homes. Semi-structured interviews with 27 men and five women participants along with self-directed photography, ‘going-alongs’, participant sensings and textual data analysis were used to examine participants experiences of football fandom and home. 
Findings are organised into three intersecting themes: things; people; and, places. The first theme focuses on how connections to a club are established and maintained through material cultures of home. Material objects construct home not only through a physical presence but also through becoming infused with emotions and memory. Unpacking the relationships between ‘people’ which shape fan identities is the second theme. Fans and their homes are gendered, raced and classed through the act of supporting a club. The relationship to ‘place’ is the third theme, where I examine the multiple places which influence fan identities. Here fan ‘homes’ are imagined as multi-scalar and I highlight the ways in which connections to a club are key to fluid notions of home and identity. 
This research demonstrates that football fandom offers a unique opportunity to geographers. Fandom spaces are under-researched and worthy of further scrutiny. Examining the relationships between home and fandom sheds light on the workings of power across a range of scales from the body, to the nation and the globe. Football fans’ homes are messy, complex, varied lived and felt.

text: Coming home through football: A geographic exploration of long-distance fandom This thesis focuses on the relationship between long-distance football fandom and home. It examines how the act of supporting non-domestic football clubs is a symbolic and material connection to multiple scales of home for 32 long-distance football fans, aged between 17–65, who live in Aotearoa New Zealand. I argue that football fans and homes are mutually constituted and continually reproduced through football fandom practices. Examining fan practice from the scale of the body through to the globe demonstrates how multiple homes interplay with fan practice. Literature on home and literature on sport have not yet been combined by scholars. Drawing these two bodies of work together offers the opportunity to unpack fans’ relationships to ‘things’, between ‘people’ and to ‘places’, providing a window into critical geographies of identities.
Social, cultural, feminist and emotional geographies of home and qualitative research methods frame this research. A range of methods are combined to create a holistic view of the complex and messy relationships which construct fan identities and homes. Semi-structured interviews with 27 men and five women participants along with self-directed photography, ‘going-alongs’, participant sensings and textual data analysis were used to examine participants experiences of football fandom and home. 
Findings are organised into three intersecting themes: things; people; and, places. The first theme focuses on how connections to a club are established and maintained through material cultures of home. Material objects construct home not only through a physical presence but also through becoming infused with emotions and memory. Unpacking the relationships between ‘people’ which shape fan identities is the second theme. Fans and their homes are gendered, raced and classed through the act of supporting a club. The relationship to ‘place’ is the third theme, where I examine the multiple places which influence fan identities. Here fan ‘homes’ are imagined as multi-scalar and I highlight the ways in which connections to a club are key to fluid notions of home and identity. 
This research demonstrates that football fandom offers a unique opportunity to geographers. Fandom spaces are under-researched and worthy of further scrutiny. Examining the relationships between home and fandom sheds light on the workings of power across a range of scales from the body, to the nation and the globe. Football fans’ homes are messy, complex, varied lived and felt.

year: 2018

title: Social deprivation in New Zealand

authors: Harcourt, Brian James

subjects: Deprivation

abstract: The purpose of the thesis was to better understand the phenomenon of social deprivation, world-wide and in particular in New Zealand. Social deprivation has been defined in many ways with multiple surrogates used to ‘measure’ its prevalence. The aim of this research was to provide examples of the lived experiences of social deprivation.

Social constructivist and interpretive lenses were used to portray the voices of those living in deprivation, as well as those people tasked to assist them. A narrative case study approach was employed with participants from Whānau Ora. This social and health initiative offered a holistic approach to assistance in contrast to the usual State agencies operating in a silo fashion, with separate agencies providing for different aspects of social deprivation such as housing, employment, mental health and other services. The approach of Whānau Ora is to support clients’ needs holistically and encourage people to develop their own plans for self- improvement. Navigators help people develop their plans and assist in their interactions with the various State agencies whose services they require. This approach allowed a better understanding of ways to overcome people’s feelings of powerlessness and desperation.

The findings from the study lead to suggestions for the application of evidence-based, complementary, integrated assistance programmes rather than having segregated public service agencies acting independently. The recommendations are simple yet require profound changes in public service operations when attempting to ameliorate or prevent social deprivation among citizens.

text: Social deprivation in New Zealand The purpose of the thesis was to better understand the phenomenon of social deprivation, world-wide and in particular in New Zealand. Social deprivation has been defined in many ways with multiple surrogates used to ‘measure’ its prevalence. The aim of this research was to provide examples of the lived experiences of social deprivation.

Social constructivist and interpretive lenses were used to portray the voices of those living in deprivation, as well as those people tasked to assist them. A narrative case study approach was employed with participants from Whānau Ora. This social and health initiative offered a holistic approach to assistance in contrast to the usual State agencies operating in a silo fashion, with separate agencies providing for different aspects of social deprivation such as housing, employment, mental health and other services. The approach of Whānau Ora is to support clients’ needs holistically and encourage people to develop their own plans for self- improvement. Navigators help people develop their plans and assist in their interactions with the various State agencies whose services they require. This approach allowed a better understanding of ways to overcome people’s feelings of powerlessness and desperation.

The findings from the study lead to suggestions for the application of evidence-based, complementary, integrated assistance programmes rather than having segregated public service agencies acting independently. The recommendations are simple yet require profound changes in public service operations when attempting to ameliorate or prevent social deprivation among citizens.

year: 2019