Department of Anthropology & Archaeology
Anthropology 1593 The science of mankind in the widest sense, coined from Greek: anthropos “human being” + –logos “study of.”
This page contains an archive of completed theses and dissertations written by students enrolled in Anthropology. Each item is available to read in our departmental library, and the MA and PhD theses can be interloaned from the University Library. Click to expand items and view the abstract of each completed work.
This research explores the narratives articulated by a cross-section of Muslim women in New Zealand. The women interviewed often felt defined and overlooked by dominant discourses that tend to stereotype and essentialise Muslim women. Muslim populations are part of growing populations within Western host societies and New Zealand is also indicative of this. The New Zealand Muslim community is comprised of diasporic, immigrant Muslims as well as New Zealand born Muslims and converts (reverts) to Islam. Recent international tensions and conflicts have had significant impact on Muslim women in terms of increasing experiences of hostility and racism in New Zealand, which may manifest in forms of social prejudice, such as employment discrimination. Western, non-Muslim stereotypes also tend to objectify Muslim women as passive, oppressed victims of their own culture and religion.
This study examines the practical realities of living in New Zealand for Muslim women, as well as discussing the ways in which the participants negotiate non-Muslim perceptions, religious and cultural ideologies and identify construction, as well as exploring deeper levels of faith and meaning for Muslim women in New Zealand. New Zealand society is unofficially ‘multicultural’, within an officially bicultural framework, which can be problematic in terms of practicalities and definition for minority ethnic or religious groups. The women interviewed expressed a dynamic and fluid attitude towards identity definition and construction, emphasising their gendered Muslim identities but also claiming ‘Kiwi’ and other self-definitions. The women also discussed the ways in which individual hermeneutics are utilised to interpret Islam for the benefit of women, as well as isolating cultural inputs inappropriate for women and Islam, in a process of ‘re-Islamisation’ that is occurring as part of a global phenomenom. The participants also talked about faith and deeper meanings for practicing Muslim women.
Muslim women in diasporic or minority populations may experience marginalisation and isolation, so this research also explores the active agency that women employ to counter these. Islam and faith are ‘anchors’ and form a foundation for these women in, often insecure, contexts. Faith and community tend to ameliorate the negative experiences for the women, as well as providing social networks and support. As minority populations interact with the host society, intercultural dialogues are occurring that create new spaces for identity and interpretation. So-called ‘Islamic feminism ‘, in which women use Islam as a source of agency and rights appropriation, is an example of this and challenges, even redefines, some Western, feminist paradigms.
Hijab (modest dressing) is also examined through the lens of faith and practice. Hijab is a symbol of identity for women, communicating that the wearer is Muslim, but it has also acquired new definitions in Western contexts. Hijab, however, also embodies deeper meanings of faith and community, which are often overlooked in commentaries regarding this practice. The women interviewed directly contradicted the stereotypical assumptions that non-Muslim Westerners may make about them and articulated self-definitions and meanings that emphasised their agency and choices within Islam.
This thesis reports on an ethnographic research project that explored the experiences and perspectives of a group of women in New Zealand higher education, including international and New Zealand students and partners of international students. The study had two aims. The first was to disrupt the inattention to gender and to students’ partners and families in New Zealand international education research and policy. The second was to problematise Eurocentric assumptions of (predominantly Asian) international students; ‘cultural difference’, and of New Zealanders’ homogenised sameness.
The theoretical framework for the study was informed by a range of conceptual tools, including feminist, critical theory, post-structural, and postcolonial perspectives. In drawing on feminist perspectives, the study was driven by a concern with acknowledging the importance and value of women’s lives, looking for women where they are absent from policy and analysis, and attending to the mechanisms through which some women’s lives are rendered invisible in internationalised higher education. In considering these mechanisms and women’s lives in relation to them the study also drew on post-structural notions of discourse, power and agency. It explored how dominant discourses in internationalised higher education reveal and reproduce historically-grounded relations of power that are intentionally or unintentionally performed, subverted and/or resisted by women and those they encounter. Using Young’s (1990, 2000) approach to critical theory, the study also considered alternative ways of constructing internationalised higher education that were suggested in women’s accounts.
As a critical feminist ethnography the study was shaped by my theoretical framework (above), critical literature on heterogeneous social groups, and feminist concerns with relationship, reciprocity and power in the research process. Fieldwork took place during 2005 and 2006 and involved two aspects: the establishment and maintenance of an intercultural group for women associated with a higher education institution, and 28 interviews with 20 women over two years. Interviewees were recruited through the group and included eight international students, nine New Zealand students and three women partners of international students.
VStudy findings challenged the assumption that international and local students are distinct and oppositional groups. They also highlighted the importance of recognising the legitimate presence of international students’ partners and accompanying family members at all levels in higher education. International and New Zealand women alike found the intercultural group a useful source of social and practical support and information, and a point of access to other sources of support and information. Women reflected on moving between many different kinds of living and learning contexts, highlighting the importance of: clear processes and pathways for accessing information and practical support when experiencing transition; teaching that is engaging, effective, and responsive; and opportunities to develop connections with other people both on and off campus. Rather than revealing clear patterns of difference or sameness across women, the study highlighted the importance of policy, research, teaching and support practices that are open and responsive to women’s actual viewpoints and needs, and that neither re-entrench difference nor assume sameness.
This thesis is about the Rainbow Temple in Byron Shire, NSW, Australia. The diverse belief systems and the symbolic behaviours practiced by people who live at the Rainbow Temple constitute a particular identity assigned predominantly with what I call “Rainbow culture”. This culture is derived and constituted from the Rainbow Tribe gatherings practiced all around the world. The Rainbow Tribe (or the Rainbow Family) is an international affiliation of individuals who share common belief and identity systems, who gather periodically and intentionally to practice exclusive rituals and ceremonies. This study shows that the Rainbow Temple functions as a multi-cultural sphere and encapsulates various cultural and religious properties that cohere to and as associated with those exhibited in Rainbow Tribe gatherings.
Initially, according to its founder, the Rainbow Temple was not meant to have an affiliation with the Rainbow Tribe, but over time the Temple has evolved an association with Rainbow culture. Participants and informants recognize the Rainbow Temple as a “gathering” sphere or as a “centre” for Rainbow Tribe spirit, and attribute meanings of sacredness and inviolability to the Temple. I will examine these attributes and claim that they are part of a larger context.
To portray a viable ontological reality and explain the cultural occurrences in the Rainbow Temple, I have relied on three streams of knowledge. First, I have investigated similar recorded cases and relevant theories about identity systems, new religions and New Age spirituality. Second, I have gathered the descriptions, comments and reflections of the people who live at the Rainbow Temple. And third, I have considered my own experiences with the Rainbow Tribe and my fieldwork at the Rainbow Temple.
While on the surface, the cultural occurrences at the Temple seem to be a mishmash of ideas and practices, in this thesis I argue that there is a consistent ideology behind the confusion. I examine the foundations of some of the cultural processes and the symbolic behaviours which constitute Rainbow culture and Rainbow identity.
New Zealand settlement began with waves of Māori settlement, then, in the last few hundred years, colonizers and opportunity-seekers have come from many countries. After World War II, New Zealand government actively sought ‘suitable’ migrants to power the economy. British continued to be the strongly favoured group, however, policies expanded to include dozens of nationalities. Over 400,000 people migrated to New Zealand between 1945 and 1965. In this research, I have made contact with members of this diverse group. Twenty-two immigrants were interviewed for this study. Having arrived as young adults in the twenty years after World War II, they have now been in New Zealand for forty to sixty years and are now between fifty-nine and eighty years old. They come from a variety of backgrounds in twelve different countries. They can all be considered ‘white’ immigrants in relation to New Zealand’s indigenous Māori population and other non-European immigrant groups such as those from Pacific Island nations or Asia.
This thesis avoids a ‘snapshot’ approach that is frequently used to record only the charismatic ‘leaving’ and ‘arriving’ stories. It also argues against the assumption that decades of continued residence, particularly for white immigrants in a white-majority nation, imply an ‘assimilation’ of cultural identity. Assuming instead that this is an incomplete picture, this thesis questions: Where is home and how do they define it? What role does their homeland have now? How has their national identity changed? Are they still treated as foreigners? Do they still think of themselves as immigrants? Do they have a sense of what life would be like as an older adult in their country of origin?
Considering the migration experience over many decades, this research utilizes a narrative approach, speaking with those who have lived this experience and made sense of it in their own lives. Viewing the interviews as strong, empirical data, this thesis stems directly from what the participating immigrants told me. Utilizing the methods involved in grounded theory, data was collected and analysed without a preconceived theory in mind. Three themes emerged in intense analysis of eleven of the interviews: Identity, Aging, and Concepts of Home. Chapter Two focuses on the immigrants’ experiences of identity as it relates to their respective homelands and New Zealand. This chapter addresses identity negotiations over time and identity management in the context of post-World War II New Zealand. Chapter Three considers concepts and experiences of home: the changing role of an immigrant’s homeland, the simultaneous development of New Zealand as home of the ‘everyday’ and the effect of globalization and transnationalism on these experiences of home. Chapter Four looks at later-life experiences and concerns as an immigrant. The creation of continuity from their arrival through to the present is also considered. A consistent undertone quietly but undeniably runs through these categories and ties them all together: The passage of time. This undertone is addressed throughout this thesis with the concluding suggestion that there is a negotiation of gain and loss over time for a long-term immigrant.
This thesis is an ethnographic study of the staff of the Salvation Army Bridge Centre, Dunedin. The Bridge Centre is an Alcohol and Drug rehabilitation facility in Dunedin. The contents of this thesis discusses several concepts which add together to equal the staff’s experience of their job. Based on fourteen interviews with case workers and residential supervisors, this is a qualitative thesis and employs an abductive research strategy, grounding the contents of the six chapters in the interview participant’s everyday worlds.
Chapter one and two lay a foundation for the rest of the thesis discussing in detail the Bridge Programme which the staff facilitate, and the Twelve Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous, one of the four cornerstones of the Bridge Programme. The Twelve Steps are important to discuss as they involve concepts such as the necessity of a spiritual experience and of being conscious of a Higher Power. These are ideas the staff can have trouble teaching. By discussing such ideas as Victor Turner’s liminality, Talcott Parsons’ Sick Role and the third part of Arnold van Gennep’s ritual process (incorporation) this thesis understands the staff’s experience as strongly affected by the client’s experience. One major influence in this experience is the concept of volition. Some clients are admitted to the programme by the court system under the 1996 Alcohol and Drug Act and therefore do not choose through their own desire to participate. This concept in turn can lead to resistant clients and tricky moments, the title of the fourth chapter. There are tensions and contradictions throughout the thesis, one major tension is the staff’s life experience, some are recovering from addiction themselves while others are not, some are highly trained while others are not. Part of this tension is the staff’s legitimate authority in the fifth chapter. This thesis understands the staff trying to treat clients as individuals when the larger framework of the Programme and the institutions funding the Programme seem to see it more as a way to control one deviant aspect of society.
Officially labelled a ‘mental health condition’, postpartum or postnatal depression (PPD/PND) affects ten to fifteen percent of all parents in contemporary New Zealand society (Mental Health Foundation 2002: 5). This thesis explores the experiences of living with such a diagnosis for five families and eight individuals now living in the eastern South Island. It attempts to detail the personal and joint realities of PPD within the central context in which it occurs – the family; an area that has been neglected in the literature. This research is qualitative in nature and consists of eleven interviews and participation observation of three couples, interviewed together and separately, and two women who felt they had no ‘significant support person’. It details how PPD is subjectively conceived of, focusing on the distressing processes of realization, recognition and reasoning along with the many possible ‘triggers’ of what sufferers’ term a ‘bizarre’ sickness. The confusion in these understandings is further elaborated by discussion of the ‘uncertain lifeworlds’ of the participants, living lives which have been ‘biographically disrupted’. PPD is somatically attended to through stigma, temporality karma and the dominant motif of health ‘care’, and the informants’ experiences sit in uneasy tension with New Zealand’s mental health policies based on ‘sick role’ ideals. This thesis also illuminates the local gendered ideologies of parenting that have influenced experiences of PPD. These are linked to the active positioning of identities as ‘hero’ and ‘victim’, suggesting that specifically gendered somatic modes of attention to PPD exist. Contrary to contemporary public health campaigns which attempt to de-stigmatize the experience of diagnosed mental illness, this study suggests PPD is something that is not easily recovered from, is difficult to express and takes many years to come to terms with. It remains something to try to make sense of and to somehow integrate into one’s life history; only after this is accomplished many true healing commence.
During his tenure as Ethnologist, and later, Director of the Otago Museum, H.D. Skinner assembled the largest Cook Islands collection of any museum in New Zealand. This thesis argues that these collections were not passively assembled, but were rather formed as the result of a complex web of human interactions, motivations and emotions. The Museum’s Cook Islands collection and its associated correspondence are examined in a case study of how relationships between people, mediated by objects, guide the mechanics of collection development in the museum environment.
This analysis is situated within a contemporary academic discourse where museum collections are being re-evaluated, not only to determine the role of colonialism in collection development, but also indigenous agency and the socio-political filters applied consciously or otherwise by western museum collectors. In conjunction with the role this collecting played in the history of anthropology, the relationships between people and things is examined through analysis concerning the political value of objects in differing social contexts.
Within this academic framework, Skinner’s motivations in encouraging and persuading others to send objects to the Otago Museum are discussed. These motivations were manifold, ranging from the influence of his father, through to his distinct visual approach to object morphology. Skinner’s studies at Cambridge are discussed, with their important role in cementing his typological, comparative approach to anthropology. This perspective is shown to be a key impetus for Skinner, who saw museum collections as the most important scientific and educational resource for anthropology.
Skinner’s use of New Zealand’s colonial infrastructure in Polynesia is also a key focus in this analysis. Much of his collecting was done by proxy through agents in the ‘field’. These agents ranged from the senior ranks of the colonial administration through to isolated commercial traders. The motivations and obligations Skinner fostered amongst these disparate individuals to donate or sell objects to the Otago Museum receives in depth assessment. Drawn out in this analysis is the involvement of indigenous Cook Islanders in the collecting process, the culture of gifting in the Cook Islands and how it influenced the assemblage of these collections.
Three modes of collecting are examined: purchase, donation and inter-museum exchange. All three modes illustrate the argument that museum collection development is not a passive process, but multifaceted and politically charged.
This thesis employs a narrative analysis approach to study illness experiences of people living with cancer in contemporary Dunedin. The specific focus is on the commonalities and differences in understanding and experiencing dietary and lifestyle modifications as a response to illness. An additional focal point is to examine the relationship between personal actions and illness experiences with those of contemporary constructions of biological citizenship. To enable this analysis, extended-length open-ended interviews were conducted with twelve people living in Dunedin who were diagnosed with cancer between 1985 and 2007. The topics covered included dietary and lifestyle beliefs, practices and experiences before and after their diagnoses. The contents of the narrative interviews were then reviewed and an analytical framework relevant to the informants’ stories was developed. The participants often articulated similar understandings and experiences of dietary and lifestyle change in their own lives as they negotiated sites of productive knowledge. Tellers of ‘Who I Want to Become’ narratives discussed initiating major dietary and lifestyle changes subsequent to diagnosis; alterations often made in one fell swoop. Tellers of ‘Who I Always Have Been’ stories described why they maintained the same practices as before their diagnosis. Narratives of ‘Reluctant Phoenix’ stories told of their moderate interest in diet and lifestyle change and their inability or unwillingness to make large alterations. Regardless of how individuals engaged sites of knowledges, the encounter with a multitude of beliefs pertaining to the importance of dietary and lifestyle change for people living with cancer was inevitable for all and was often a dramatic experience. Of additional significance was that many informants discussed aspects of illness experience which related to contemporary theories of biological citizenship, including the desire for personal change through self-action, possibilities as well as problems associated with the availability of mass amounts of specialized knowledge, and the potential for making collective demands on the status quo through increased participation in novel biosocial collectives. These findings suggest that the infrequently used approach of gathering focused illness narratives by interviewing can be insightful and full of rich detail which may be missed by other approaches to narrative research. Sharing these ‘details’ may become more important to narrative researchers as the environment of biological citizenship increasingly makes life actions such as dietary modification central to illness experience and the expression of civil rights.
Many existing epistemologies which influence the production, distribution and consumption of commodities on a global scale are currently being questioned and reviewed. This is due to increasing debates and concerns about the future survival of earth and our inhabitance on it. Issues such as global warming, environmental degradation and natural resource over-extraction are generating much attention, which pockets of environmentalist movements globally are mobilising in response to. Among these groups is a community oriented organisation called WEGgies, located in a New Zealand South Island town called Waitati. It is this group which I conduct my research on through engaging in qualitative participant observation. While investigating WEGgies I learned their actions were embedded in a narrative that embraced the crisis theory as demonstrated above. They formed as a grassroots movement in opposition to central government’s inadvertence to sufficiently address a possible future environmental and social disaster. Through their grassroots activism WEGgies rallied to forge and solidify a local food network which they foresaw as creating a degree of community resilience against potential structural, social and environmental collapse. This has constructed a model of community sustainability specific to the geographical location and cultural makeup of WEGgies. These actions represent a shift in food production and distribution regimes and environmental and social relations which reflect what Andre Edwards calls; the Sustainability Revolution. It is this assumption which I have investigated WEGgies actions in accordance with..
In New Zealand, many of the embodied skills of medicine are learnt by medical students within real clinical contexts in a public and often high stakes environment. During clinical training, medical students are gaining these skills for the first time and are hyper-alert to the active work involved in their acquisition. However, little research examining the embodied nature of this type of learning has been conducted. This study reflects on the embodied work involved in becoming a doctor through analysis of the journaling of my learning experiences while a fourth year (first year clinical) medical student on both general practice (primary care) and surgical ward rotations. I use an auto-ethnographic approach to construct my embodied learning experiences as both the subject (myself as medical student) and the researcher (myself as anthropologist). Looking at my experiences though the lens of embodiment, I reflect upon learning ‘doctoring’ using my own experiences as a case study.
The Dog Squad: An exploration of volunteer experiences in Dunedin, aims to provide a qualitative investigation of the experiences and motivations of the individuals that volunteer for the Dunedin based SPCA Dog Squad. This project was initiated due to the considerable lack of qualitative studies on volunteers and handlers that are involved in the growing practice of animal-assisted activities and therapy. Historical perspectives on animal-human relations, the relatively recent practice of using animals for therapeutic purposes to increase human health and wellbeing and volunteer theory is discussed to highlight the experiences and encounters of the Dog Squad volunteers. The present study provides a description of what the Dog Squad is and what it aims to do. The volunteers’ backgrounds are explored illustrating that a significant proportion of the participants held a high degree of human capital. The majority of participants understood attributes such as having “common sense,” being “easy to talk to” and having a “bright” personality as being prerequisites for a good volunteer for the Dog Squad. The present research notes that the majority of Dog Squad members were motivated to be involved with the group due to self-fulfilling benefits and social networks, which resonated with the social network and exchange theories. The present research also observed that the dogs of the Dog Squad acted as social lubricants, which increased interaction between the participants and the patients. The participants often engaged in emotional management to create the appropriate “level” of emotions for the Dog Squad visits. The present study illustrates that the SPCA Dog Squad is an example of animal-assisted activity programme, whereby the participants reported similar perceived benefits to other comparable programmes, including providing a “break” and a distraction in the day, reduced or diverted pain perception and increased social interaction.
This dissertation investigates the representation of the Pacific Island Recognised Seasonal Employer (RSE) scheme participants in the print media of Marlborough during 2008. The results for this study are based on the analysis of 108 articles gathered from between January 1st 2008 and December 31st 2008 from four local newspapers in Marlborough. This project argues that the Pacific Island RSE participants are represented as an objectified labour resource, which is largely excluded from the community. This is based on a discussion of the concept of ‘community’ and how individuals may be considered ‘insiders’ and or ‘outsiders’ based on the use of shared common symbols. These notions of ‘community’, demarcating ‘insider’ from ‘outsider’ and ‘self’ from ‘other’, are evident in the representations of RSE participants in the Marlborough region. This draws from the culturally mediated politics of representation of earlier media portrayals of the New Zealand dawn raids in the late 1970’s and also, somewhat disturbingly from the indentured labour system between Australia and the Pacific in the late 19th century.
Second Floor, Richardson Buildinganthropology@otago.ac.nz
Tel 64 3 479 8751
Fax 64 3 479 9095
Disclaimer | Copyright © Anthropology & Archaeology, University of Otago
