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“Movement to help us move forwards in life” : an exploration of meaningful movement and chronic pain through zine-making : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science in Health Psychology at Massey University, Albany, New Zealand via Distance
(Massey University, 2026) Martin-Ball, Emily Louise
Chronic Pain (CP) is one of the most widespread long-term health conditions globally, and its prevalence is expected to rise in coming years. Physical activity is widely promoted as a best-practice intervention for people experiencing CP, yet engaging in movement is often challenging, with pain itself acting as a barrier. Existing research narratives of what constitutes meaningful movement are largely shaped by biomedical perspectives, leaving limited space for community-led understandings. CP is also frequently misunderstood and difficult to communicate, contributing to its status as an invisible and sometimes dismissed experience. This study worked collaboratively with members of a CP peer-support group to explore how they understand, express, and use meaningful movement to live well with persistent and fluctuating pain. Using arts-based methodology informed by participatory-action tenets, the research centred lived experience and the co-production of a collaborative zine. This approach aligned with participatory action researchers’ commitment to democratising knowledge and enable co-researchers to articulate embodied, emotional, and relational dimensions of moving with CP which are often overlooked in clinical framings. The findings highlight how meaningful movement is constructed through everyday movement, reciprocity, identity, and connection, offering rich and nuanced understandings of movement within the context of living with persistent and fluctuating pain.
Ngāti kahungunu sub-tribal affairs and British socio-political ideals in the settlement of the Heretaunga Plains : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in History at Massey University, Manawatū, New Zealand
(Massey University, 2026) Wairau, Rāniera
This thesis argues that prevailing interpretations of the Heretaunga land purchases are incomplete because they marginalise Ngāti Kahungunu sub-tribal politics and obscure the role of imported British socio-political ideals in shaping early settlement. Focusing on the period from the mid-nineteenth to the early twentieth century, and centring hapū-level authority and governance, it demonstrates that colonial interactions in the region were negotiated through complex local power structures rather than through the unilateral imposition of colonial control. The thesis further contends that enduring colonial narratives— particularly those concerning cannibalism, racial theory, an absence of women in prevailing historical narratives, and an attempt to form a national narrative that isolates New Zealand from colonisation and empire—have distorted historical understandings of society in early Hawke’s Bay. Re-evaluating these narratives reveals a more nuanced account of Māori political life and colonial settlement in Heretaunga. This thesis makes three contributions to the existing historiography. First, it offers the most sustained hapū-level analysis of the Heretaunga purchases to date, demonstrating that sub-tribal political dynamics—rather than individual rangatira decisions or Crown policy alone—were the primary determinants of how land alienation unfolded. Second, it recovers the role of women, both Māori and Pākehā, whose authority and experiences have been systematically marginalised in both colonial sources and subsequent scholarship, including figures such as Hine-i-paketia and Mereana Hokomatā Cannon within Ngāti Kahungunu, and Elizabeth Colenso within the missionary and settler context. Third, it connects this historical analysis directly to the contemporary socio-political experiences of Ngāti Kahungunu ki Heretaunga, demonstrating that the patterns established during the colonial period continue to shape land ownership, governance participation, and economic outcomes in the region today.
Formulation and characterization of coconut-based cream cheese : study of influence of starch and hydrocolloids : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Food Technology, Massey University, Palmerston North, New Zealand
(Massey University, 2026) Kolazhikkaran Pradeep, Pranav
Cream cheese analogue using plant-based ingredients requires the formation of a structurally stable matrix which can reproduce the viscosity and textural attributes similar to conventional cream cheese. Considering the functional properties and lipid content, coconut milk is a promising ingredient for plant-based cream cheese. But to achieve the properties associated with cream cheese, modifications using hydrocolloids and starch is necessary while using coconut milk. This study investigated the formulation and optimization of a coconut-based cream cheese analogue, while evaluating the effects of modified corn starch and xanthan-locust bean gum in product stability and functionality. Nine formulations were prepared using three levels of modified starch (0,2,5% w/w), and xanthan-locust bean gum combinations at 1:1 ratio (0,0.1,0.5% w/w). Assessments on textural, rheological, colour, storage stability and microstructural characteristics were conducted on these samples on day 1,7 and day 14 while stored at 4℃. Consumer sensory evaluation was conducted to identify the most acceptable formulation. The addition of starch and hydrocolloid to the coconut milk matrix during the production of vegan cream cheese helped to develop a firmer, adhesive, and spreadable cream cheese with a higher viscosity, relative to the control sample. The colour of the samples was comparatively unaffected by the hydrocolloid incorporations, with overall colour difference values ranging from 2.31-5.74. Microstructural observations of the samples supported the formation of a stable three-dimensional matrix while using starch and hydrocolloids in the formulations. Sample CCC (Coconut cream cheese) was identified as the most acceptable formulation amongst the sample, to be a vegan cream cheese analogue developed using coconut milk. Although it had lower fat% (13.7%) similar to commercial reduced-fat cream cheeses, it had spreadibility (53.1 N.sec), firmness (9.07 N) and adhesiveness values (-19.2 N.sec) similar to commercial full fat cream cheese with lower viscosity compared to commercial cream cheeses at 20℃. The results from this study can be used as an insight into starch-hydrocolloid structuring mechanisms in plat-based cream cheese alternative developments, and as a basis for further development of stable, sensory acceptable and commercially relevant products in this category.
Feeding the Margins: Disability and Food Sovereignty in the Majority World
(Dublin University Press, 2026-10-29) Pillay M; Jagoe Sherman C; O'Reilly CF
This chapter argues that the right to food is meaningless without the capability to eat, and that this capability is structurally denied to persons with disabilities in the Majority World. Drawing on Amartya Sen's capability approach, Frantz Fanon's analysis of coloniality, and de Sousa Santos's account of epistemicide, swallowing disability is reframed not as a clinical anomaly but as a political-economic outcome shaped by colonial spatial planning, structural adjustment, food-system deregulation, and neocolonial workforce distribution. In KwaZulu-Natal, 91% of disabled people live in food-insecure households; in Aotearoa New Zealand, similar patterns mark Māori and Pacific populations as Majority-World citizens within a settler-colonial Minority-World state. These are not separate clinical problems — they are the same political problem made visible across Majority World contexts. The chapter introduces THRIVE (Tackling Hunger with Research and Innovation in Vulnerable Environments), a decolonial praxis framework developed in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. THRIVE rests on four pillars. Pillar 1 (Food Production) operationalises indigenised, dysphagia-safe food through One Home One Garden initiatives and pharmacy farms. Pillar 2 (Food Preparation) applies molecular gastronomy to community kitchens — the Robin Hood Strategy. Pillar 3 (Con-Texture) contextualises the IDDSI classification system for indigenous foods, validated through embodied, sensory knowledge held by community health workers. Pillar 4 (Primary Care Risk Management) relocates choking prevention and aspiration response training from the urban hospital to the household, school, and clinic. THRIVE is not a service-improvement model. It is an onto-epistemological intervention: epistemic relocation from the credentialed expert to the family caregiver, from the clinic to the kitchen. Its guiding ethos is Decolonising Deliciousness; the insistence that safety, pleasure, and political sovereignty are inseparable. Safe eating, in this frame, is a political act: the right to food becomes coherent only when the capability to eat is collectively defended as both clinical and political work. The swallow is never just a swallow. It is where food sovereignty, disability justice, and environmental injustice converge. A framework, called THRIVE; which stands for Tackling Hunger with Research and Innovation in Vulnerable Environments; positions food insecurity as politicised: a question of who reaches food, and who possesses the capability to benefit from it. In this chapter, the argument is straightforward: the right to food means nothing without the capability to eat, and that capability is structurally denied to persons with disabilities in the Majority World (Alam, 2008). This term, Majority World, reframes the “developing world” as home to the majority of the world’s population, challenging the marginality implied by terms like Third World or Global South. Crucially, the Majority World includes indigenous and marginalised populations within the Global North (Pillay & Kathard, 2018). The Global North/South binary originates in the Brandt Commission's North–South: A Programme for Survival (1980) as an economic classification of high- and low-income economies, displacing the politically loaded First/Second/Third World schema. Its limitations are well documented: the binary obscures stratification within both regions, and an income-based frame inadequately captures the epistemic, political, and historical dimensions of global inequality. This chapter therefore adopts Majority World (Alam, 2008) foregrounding population share over income, and Minority World as its counterpart, while retaining Global North/South only where directly cited.
Artificial intelligence as a cultural adaptation scaffold: Experiences of Asian international students at Chinese universities
(MDPI, 2026-11-01) Li M; Wang M; Zhou Z; An Y
Growing international student mobility, particularly intra-Asian flows to China, has intensified the need to support Asian international students’ cultural adaptation amid linguistic, academic, sociocultural, and psychological challenges. This study examines how artificial intelligence (AI) is used and perceived as a resource for such adaptation in Chinese higher education. Drawing on Berry’s acculturation framework, Ward and Kennedy’s dualprocess model, and Deardorff’s and Byram’s intercultural competence theories, the study employed a qualitative interpretivist design. Semi-structured interviews with 37 Asian international students from 11 countries enrolled at five universities in Yunnan Province, China, were analysed using reflexive thematic analysis. Participants perceived AI as multidimensional adaptation scaffolding supporting academic adjustment, language mediation, sociocultural navigation, emotional well-being, and intercultural learning. They also reported challenges including misinformation, algorithmic bias, over-reliance and uneven AI literacy. Institutional factors—particularly the absence of clear policies, training and instructor guidance—further shaped how useful and safe they found AI to be. The study positions AI as a mediating resource in participants’ reported acculturation experiences and proposes multidimensional adaptation scaffolding and the dependency paradox as sensitising concepts. It underscores the need for culturally responsive AI literacy initiatives and institutional support systems to maximise perceived benefits while mitigating reported risks in international higher education.