Browsing by Author "Hodgetts, Darrin"

Now showing 1 - 3 of 3
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    The everyday conduct of inter-ethnic marriages in Indonesia : participants navigating points of tension and cultivating harmony through adaptive socio-cultural practices : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Psychology at Massey University, Albany, New Zealand
    (Massey University, 2022) Yulianto, Jony Eko
    Inter-ethnic marriages are a pressing issue in many culturally diverse countries. In Indonesia, inter-ethnic marriages comprise approximately 11% of all marriages. Researchers have predicted that this number will increase due to increasingly positive public perceptions of inter-ethnic marriages among younger generations of Indonesians. However, more research is needed to deepen present understandings of the everyday conduct of such unions. This thesis explores the dynamic inter-cultural, relational, spatial and material dimensions of the everyday conduct of 10 inter-ethnic marriages between Javanese and Chinese persons in East Java, Indonesia. Particular attention is paid to how couples navigate points of inter-cultural tension in their shared efforts to realise harmony in their marriages. This is done through adaptive socio-cultural practices. I also consider how inter-ethnic marriages can function as encounter spaces within which people from different ethnic and cultural backgrounds come together to cultivate shared and culturally hybrid lives that draw from the cultural traditions of both partners. This thesis is based around three international publications. The first article conceptualises inter-ethnic marriages as third spaces for inter-cultural re-assemblage. I document the use of various agentive social practices that enable participants to combine key elements of Javanese and Chinese Indonesian cultural assemblages within their inter-ethnic marriages. The second article explores how inter-cultural tensions in the conduct of inter-ethnic marriages are managed by participants through often mundane social practices that contribute to the socio-cultural construction of various locales, across which couples forge their lives together. The third article documents how money, related objects, and practices are often implicated in the inter-cultural relational dynamics, tensions and culturally hybrid practices that emerge when persons from different cultural backgrounds cooperate to forge new lives together. Overall, this thesis contributes to the psychology of inter-ethnic marriages by offering new insights into the ways in which Javanese and Chinese Indonesians conduct their everyday lives together. In particular, this thesis highlights the centrality of approaching inter-ethnic marriages between Javanese and Chinese Indonesians as an intimate and socio-structural process that needs to be understood within the broader context of historical inter-group relations. Accordingly, this research bridges the gap between local experiences of conducting inter-ethnic marriages and broader societal shifts in terms of how members of Javanese and Chinese cultural groups can strive agentively to cultivate more harmonious lives together.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Māori ways-of-being : addressing cultural disruption through everyday socio-cultural practices of [re]connection : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Psychology at Massey University, Albany, New Zealand
    (Massey University, 2019) King, Pita
    Within the discipline of psychology, many Indigenous scholars have endeavoured to rethink and re-theorise the foundations, focus, and methods used in an effort to construct psychologies that are more reflective of their own cosmologies and contexts. The presented thesis contributes to this Indigenous project by exploring the ways in which the ruling psychology of our times, and its underlying philosophical assumptions, can disrupt Indigenous peoples’ attempts to articulate our own understandings of being. Drawing on emic and etic approaches and grounded within Kaupapa Māori approach, this thesis engages with the complexities of what it means to be Māori today through two theoretically (chapters 2 and 3) and two community-based publications (chapters 4 and 5). In the first article (chapter 2), I decentre the dominance of ruling psychology by challenging the idea of a single disciplinary space within the discipline and introduce the notion of multiple sphericules that carry numerous cultural philosophical perspectives that combine to make up the discipline of psychology. Building on these ideas in the second article (chapter 3), I contribute to efforts to theorize Māori ways-of-being by drawing on Māori cultural understandings and associated literature, ideas from the European continental philosophical tradition, and personal reflections. Taken together, chapters 2 and 3 carve out conceptual space within psychology that is then explored through culturally immersive and auto-ethnographic techniques in chapters 4 and 5. Specifically, chapter 4 is set within the context of the low socio-economic urban landscape in which I grew up. Chapter 5 speaks more to issues of [re]connecting with ancestral homelands, communities, and ways-of-being. In chapters 4 and 5, I document how Māori cultural selves are preserved amidst histories of colonization and urbanization by paying particular attention to the role of culturally-patterned social practices evident in the conduct of everyday life. Overall, this thesis contributes to present understandings of the ongoing development of Māori subjectivities that often shift in response to the socio-cultural conditions and structural inequalities that many of our communities continue to face. This thesis provides some insights into how urban Māori, such as myself, construct and reproduce novel, creative, and culturally grounded strategies for dealing with the disruptions that have come with colonization. These efforts work to strengthen and preserve cultural connectedness and distinct Māori ways-of-being.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Understanding health and illness : an investigation of New Zealand television and lay accounts : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Psychology at Massey University
    (Massey University, 2000) Hodgetts, Darrin
    Within contemporary society, television is a prevalent source of health information. This thesis draws on insights from health psychology, media studies, and medical sociology to explore the ways that people of lower socio-economic status draw on television health coverage to construct their views on health and illness. Three primary data sets are used in an interrelated manner to investigate the complexities of this process. First, an analysis of four New Zealand health documentaries investigates the ways contemporary health concerns are covered on television. Second, an analysis of the accounts constructed in twenty individual interviews is used to explore participants' views on health, illness, and these same health concerns. Third, an analysis of four focus group discussions is used to investigate the processes through which participants construct interpretations of the health documentaries and reconstruct their views. Generally, findings indicate that the programmes, individual interviews, and focus group discussions function as cultural forums within which various shared explanations are drawn on in order to make sense of four contemporary health concerns: the health reforms, the privatisation of medical services, men's health, and aging. By exploring these processes, this thesis contributes to knowledge of the shape and focus of health coverage and the role of health communication in the refinement of lay views.