Pacific and Pasifika Theses

Permanent URI for this collectionhttps://mro.massey.ac.nz/handle/10179/4764

The theses listed in this collection were all completed at Massey University in a range of different departments and institutes. They have been included in this collection if the topic is strongly related to Pasifika/the Pacific.

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1995 - 19962

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    Self reliance and the YMCA's of Fiji and Western Samoa : a thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for a Masters of Philosophy degree in Development Studies
    (Massey University, 1995) Oliver, Dennis
    The role of Non-Government Organisations (NGO's) in the process of development in Third World countries has become a focus of attention over the last decade. Their work is seen as an important contribution in the development of the human resource. Most NGO's have become users of overseas aid. In recent years they have been challenged by the overseas funding agencies to become financially self-reliant. This study enquires about the nature of the meaning of the concept of self-reliance, whether it is a universally held value or whether it is a logical by-product of the world capitalist system. The YMCA's of Fiji and Western Samoa are used as case studies along with some other NGO's in Fiji and Western Samoa. The study concludes that the YMCA of Western Samoa is not likely to become more than fifty percent financially self-reliant because of a severely limited resource base, especially the absence of a sizable middle class. It is also immersed in a national climate of dependency from the family, community and government level. The YMCA of Fiji is making progress and will in all likelihood achieve operational financial self-reliance but in setting its goals on self-reliance it has been captured by the middle class and has reduced its programme with the poor and the rural people.
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    Gender, culture and business assistance in Western Samoa : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Philosophy in Development Studies at Massey University
    (Massey University, 1996) Shadrake, Andrew
    This thesis examines the question: How far did the planning and implementation of the Small Business Enterprise Centre of Western Samoa take into account the gender and culture perspectives of development, and to what degree are those perspectives reflected in its outcomes? It does so by reviewing the gender and culture perspectives of development, and concluding that each can be divided into two approaches. The gender perspective comprises the market approach, which aims to use women's effort to achieve economic growth, and the empowerment approach, which aims to increase the ability of women to alter the gender balance of women and men, in favour of women. The culture perspective comprises both the utilitarian approach, which advocates adapting development projects to local culture to make them more likely to succeed, and the moral approach, the purpose of which is to reduce the harmful effects of development on indigenous culture. The thesis identifies indicators of the different approaches in a development project, and then uses a four-stage analytical model to discover whether they were present in the Small Business Enterprise Centre of Western Samoa. The thesis concludes that the planning and implementation of the Small Business Enterprise Centre showed a limited application of the market and utilitarian approaches, but did not show any application of the empowerment or moral approaches, though the outcomes of the SBEC included some empowerment of women, and few harmful effects on Samoan culture. The thesis shows the primacy of neo-liberal thinking in New Zealand's overseas small-business development practice during the period 1990-1995, despite its stated concern for women and, to a lesser extent, for culture. The thesis reached three conclusions which concern wider issues: • While the nature of Western Samoan culture, and gender relations, is changing, there is no fundamental inconsistency between them and small business development. • Neo-liberalism can adopt perspectives of development which appear to spring from a concern for social welfare, and turn them to its own ends. • The combination of indicators of different perspectives and the four-stage analytical model used in the thesis can be used, very effectively, for detailed assessment of the planning, implementation and outcomes of a development project.