title: The Dis/appearing sporting body: the complex embodiment of disabled athletes

authors: Powis, Ben

abstract: This article critically explores how disability appears and disappears in high-performance sporting environments. Drawing upon symbolic interactionism and embodiment theory, we specifically focus upon disabled athletes’ lived experiences of competing in a pan-disability setting and interrogate the interplay between corporeality and social interaction in the materialising of ability, disability and impairment. In this study, 22 (21 male and one female) disabled athletes participated in online semi-structured interviews. The sample was purposively selected from athletes who had been drafted for the Disability Premier League (DPL), a unique pan-disability, draft-based franchise cricket tournament. This article establishes the DPL as a site of sociological importance – a neo-liberal, ableist environment that pushes the boundaries of what a disabled athlete and the disabled body should be. Our wide-ranging findings demonstrate the complex and interactional ways in which the disabled body dis/appears in sporting spaces and the significant embodied repercussions of this process.

text: The Dis/appearing sporting body: the complex embodiment of disabled athletes This article critically explores how disability appears and disappears in high-performance sporting environments. Drawing upon symbolic interactionism and embodiment theory, we specifically focus upon disabled athletes’ lived experiences of competing in a pan-disability setting and interrogate the interplay between corporeality and social interaction in the materialising of ability, disability and impairment. In this study, 22 (21 male and one female) disabled athletes participated in online semi-structured interviews. The sample was purposively selected from athletes who had been drafted for the Disability Premier League (DPL), a unique pan-disability, draft-based franchise cricket tournament. This article establishes the DPL as a site of sociological importance – a neo-liberal, ableist environment that pushes the boundaries of what a disabled athlete and the disabled body should be. Our wide-ranging findings demonstrate the complex and interactional ways in which the disabled body dis/appears in sporting spaces and the significant embodied repercussions of this process.

year: 2025

title: Governance and conflict in Pakistan: Developing a Conflict Prevention and Reduction (CPR) model to promote peace in Baluchistan and the Federally Administered Tribal Area (FATA)

authors: Karim, Muhammad Arsalan

subjects: Conflict Prevention and Reduction

abstract: Pakistan is an unstable country, home to a single religious nation made up of four major regional ethnic sub-nations. The inability of the political leadership of Pakistan to successfully connect and merge the interests of the nation and sub-nations with the interests of the state has been a longstanding issue. This has weakened the central political institution and allowed the military and civil bureaucracies, feudal elites and oligarch families to dominate the central government, preventing it from delivering good governance to the nation and sub-nations. These key central stakeholders allow the tribal chiefs, and religious and ethnic elites to dominate the regional political institutions and to become key regional stakeholders, triggering religious and ethnic conflict. Out of the four major sub-nation regions in Pakistan, the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) and Baluchistan are hotbeds of religious terrorism and ethnic insurgency, generating a conflict that affects the rest of the country.

Through a mix of secondary data and primary information (that includes field interviews and surveys) gathered from Baluchistan, FATA and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP), this thesis reveals the existence of sub-states that operate as discrete regional systems of socio-political governance. The study provides empirical evidence that the religious and ethnic conflicts in Pakistan are produced and sustained by these socio-political structures and their governance mechanisms. These conflicts exist in FATA and Baluchistan but not in KP – this difference between the regions offers an opportunity to consider why KP has been more successful than FATA and Baluchistan. This, in turn, provides an opportunity to consider why the governance structures and mechanisms in KP have been successful, and in the process to develop a new Conflict Prevention and Reduction (CPR) model focused on improving governance in FATA and Baluchistan. This could reduce violence and terrorism in Pakistan, while the model has potential relevance for fractured nations beyond Pakistan.

text: Governance and conflict in Pakistan: Developing a Conflict Prevention and Reduction (CPR) model to promote peace in Baluchistan and the Federally Administered Tribal Area (FATA) Pakistan is an unstable country, home to a single religious nation made up of four major regional ethnic sub-nations. The inability of the political leadership of Pakistan to successfully connect and merge the interests of the nation and sub-nations with the interests of the state has been a longstanding issue. This has weakened the central political institution and allowed the military and civil bureaucracies, feudal elites and oligarch families to dominate the central government, preventing it from delivering good governance to the nation and sub-nations. These key central stakeholders allow the tribal chiefs, and religious and ethnic elites to dominate the regional political institutions and to become key regional stakeholders, triggering religious and ethnic conflict. Out of the four major sub-nation regions in Pakistan, the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) and Baluchistan are hotbeds of religious terrorism and ethnic insurgency, generating a conflict that affects the rest of the country.

Through a mix of secondary data and primary information (that includes field interviews and surveys) gathered from Baluchistan, FATA and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP), this thesis reveals the existence of sub-states that operate as discrete regional systems of socio-political governance. The study provides empirical evidence that the religious and ethnic conflicts in Pakistan are produced and sustained by these socio-political structures and their governance mechanisms. These conflicts exist in FATA and Baluchistan but not in KP – this difference between the regions offers an opportunity to consider why KP has been more successful than FATA and Baluchistan. This, in turn, provides an opportunity to consider why the governance structures and mechanisms in KP have been successful, and in the process to develop a new Conflict Prevention and Reduction (CPR) model focused on improving governance in FATA and Baluchistan. This could reduce violence and terrorism in Pakistan, while the model has potential relevance for fractured nations beyond Pakistan.

year: 2022

title: Kōauau auē, e auau tō au e! The Kōauau in Te Ao Māori.

authors: Komene, Jo'el

subjects: Kōauau

abstract: In recent years there has been a revival of interest in traditional Māori musical instruments, including the kōauau. This thesis studies kōauau informed by a Māori framework, giving weight to traditional Māori knowledge and practices, emphasizing the spiritual dimensions of the instrument in its origins and its functions. The thesis defines the kōauau and how it is distinct from other taonga pūoro in its physical characteristics. It then presents the traditions associated with the kōauau which link its origins to the atua and their natural world, especially Raukatauri, together with other traditions from many rohe throughout Aotearoa.  The thesis describes the traditional tools and methods of construction, the role of atua in the construction process, materials used for kōauau, how they were embellished, and their use as adornments. The techniques for playing kōauau are analyzed, and there is a discussion of the occasions on which kōauau were played, and the purposes of performing on kōauau. The thesis also presents the texts of several traditional waiata kōauau. A number of traditional kōauau in storage at the Auckland Museum were able to be examined to confirm and extend documentary evidence about materials, construction methods, and embellishment. The discussion also comments on the quot;voicesquot; for those kōauau in the museum collection that could be sounded. The decline in kōauau performance during the twentieth century is outlined, and there is a summary of successful efforts in the later twentieth century to revive taonga pūoro, including kōauau. The thesis brings together in concise form much scattered information so that current and future performers with kōauau are able to give full consideration to its place in te ao Māori.

text: Kōauau auē, e auau tō au e! The Kōauau in Te Ao Māori. In recent years there has been a revival of interest in traditional Māori musical instruments, including the kōauau. This thesis studies kōauau informed by a Māori framework, giving weight to traditional Māori knowledge and practices, emphasizing the spiritual dimensions of the instrument in its origins and its functions. The thesis defines the kōauau and how it is distinct from other taonga pūoro in its physical characteristics. It then presents the traditions associated with the kōauau which link its origins to the atua and their natural world, especially Raukatauri, together with other traditions from many rohe throughout Aotearoa.  The thesis describes the traditional tools and methods of construction, the role of atua in the construction process, materials used for kōauau, how they were embellished, and their use as adornments. The techniques for playing kōauau are analyzed, and there is a discussion of the occasions on which kōauau were played, and the purposes of performing on kōauau. The thesis also presents the texts of several traditional waiata kōauau. A number of traditional kōauau in storage at the Auckland Museum were able to be examined to confirm and extend documentary evidence about materials, construction methods, and embellishment. The discussion also comments on the quot;voicesquot; for those kōauau in the museum collection that could be sounded. The decline in kōauau performance during the twentieth century is outlined, and there is a summary of successful efforts in the later twentieth century to revive taonga pūoro, including kōauau. The thesis brings together in concise form much scattered information so that current and future performers with kōauau are able to give full consideration to its place in te ao Māori.

year: 2009