Massey Documents by Type
Permanent URI for this communityhttps://mro.massey.ac.nz/handle/10179/294
Browse
19 results
Search Results
Item Not to exact a full look at the worst : (mis)representations of state-sanctioned violence in New Zealand poetry : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in English at Massey University, Manawatu, New Zealand(Massey University, 2025-11-26) McLean, RobertThis thesis examines how local poetry written between the First World War and the early twenty-first century has represented state-sanctioned violence done in Aotearoa New Zealand and on the state’s behalf overseas. Although this period is marked by the emergence and consolidation of a distinct New Zealand literature and the New Zealand state’s deliberate involvement in major overseas conflicts, surprisingly few poems directly represent such violence. This thesis identifies and analyses poems written in English by Māori, Pacific, and Pākehā poets that do represent state-sanctioned violence: Donald H. Lea’s “Gold Stripe” from Stand Down! (1917); Allen Curnow’s Island and Time (1941); Kendrick Smithyman’s “Vignettes of the Māori Wars” from Flying to Palmerston (1968); Māori Battalion: A Poetic Sequence (2001) by Alistair Te Ariki Campbell; and Captain Cook in the Underworld (2002) by Robert Sullivan. I use a form of mimetic close reading to examine their sources, spatial and temporal renderings, attribution of agency, prosody and modes of representation, construal of legitimacy, and violence’s uses and effects. I determine how poetry’s conventions, licenses, limitations, and omissions have helped or hindered naming, understanding, and owning Aotearoa New Zealand’s state-sanctioned violence in these five poetic works. The evidence from this poetic archive testifies to a radical disjunction between state-sanctioned violence’s historical realities and how these examples of New Zealand poetry have represented of it. They have largely failed to give voice to what poet Geoffrey Hill called “the world’s real cries” by refusing to address directly the social, political, and legal sources of state-sanctioned violence’s meaningfulness and legitimisation.Item Propaganda, profit, and remembrance : the role of postage and Cinderella stamps of New Zealand and Australia relating to the First World War : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in History, Massey University, Palmerston North, New Zealand(Massey University, 2023-12-06) Dawson, KennethThe representation and interpretation of the events of the First World War and its aftermath through Cinderella stamps, and definitive and commemorative postage stamps, offer an alternative approach to the study of First World War history. This thesis examines the role of such stamps from the perspective of New Zealand and Australia during the period 1914-2018. By studying these historic documents, as primary source material, much can be learned about fund raising for the war, the developing patterns of war remembrance and the post-war changes in the self-image of both countries. The specific approach adopted in this study was to pose three research questions in order to gain insight into the role of the various forms of stamps in providing direct information about matters relevant to or resulting from the First World War. Specifically addressed was the use of stamps for fundraising and propaganda purposes. A further question inquired as to whether postage stamps and Cinderella stamps play a part in war remembrance and especially at the time of the First World War Centenary between 2014 and 2018. Thirdly, did stamps reflected any changes in self-image and self-identity in the two countries over the one-hundred-year period from the onset of the war. The methodology employed involved a wide search for all the relevant postage and Cinderella stamps issued over the last one hundred years in New Zealand and Australia, and any Cinderella stamps that were known to have circulated in both countries during the study period. In addition, archival studies were carried out in both countries for material linking postage and Cinderella stamps to the First World War. Further investigations related to the origins and rationale for the release of the identified stamps. Cinderella stamps played an important role in the raising of funds for soldiers’ welfare during the First World War. New Zealand used postage stamps as a means of raising funds for the war effort, while Australia simply raised postal rates overall as a war tax. Cinderella stamps also played a role in the dissemination of propaganda, more so in Australia than New Zealand. Postage and Cinderella stamps can reflect societal change and have mirrored the developing self-images of New Zealand and Australia. Remembrance of the war by commemorative stamps was limited during the first seventy-five years following the war. Prior to and during the centenary of the First World War, there was a massive output of stamps directed at recalling the effects of the war on both societies and remembrance of the fallen.Item The social construction of housing tenure in Aotearoa New Zealand, 1900 to 1990 : crisis, place, and the path to a dual tenure regime : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Geography at Massey University, Manawatū, Aotearoa New Zealand(Massey University, 2023) Ryland, Daniel BrianOver the 20th Century and beyond there have been repeated urban housing crises which have negatively impacted the welfare of many households. Discussions and solutions for these crises have centred on binaries of homeownership and renting or State versus market within a pre-determined housing trajectory. However, the academic housing literature has argued for a more nuanced view of tenure to engage with housing effectively. This thesis aims to contribute to this project by exploring Aotearoa New Zealand’s pathway toward a dual tenure regime. I explore tenure as a relational concept created by the intersection of economic, legal, and cultural dimensions in place and across time. Exploring tenure beyond broad categorisations emphasises the need to imagine it differently. I used document analysis drawing on Parliamentary debates, political cartoons, archival documents, newspapers, statistics, and community organisation reports. They were analysed with a social constructivist approach inspired by a critical realism lens to explore the interdependence of tenure, place, and housing crisis. A core feature is that housing crises necessitating solutions drive tenure change. To explore Aotearoa New Zealand’s pathway to a dual tenure regime, I focused on the social construction of tenure during three housing crises. I argue that Aotearoa New Zealand’s dual tenure regime valorising freehold ownership with an individual title over other tenure options took shape over the 20th Century. Housing policy and economic decisions in the first quarter of the century to deal with housing crises embedded freehold ownership with an individual title as the most desirable tenure and end point of a housing trajectory. These would be reinforced through later housing crises as the social construction of tenure created opportunities and constraints for housing. By 1990, tenures were understood through their relation to freehold with an individual title and how they fit within a pre-defined housing trajectory, limiting the ability to experiment with other tenure forms. The thesis concludes that tenure needs to be imagined holistically as a multiply-determined, dynamic, and relational concept intertwined with crises, and that the latter can highlight opportunities to imagine other tenures.Item Maverick politicians : their beliefs and actions : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in Social Policy at Massey University, Albany, New Zealand(Massey University, 1999) Boyd, Hilary ChristineThrough interviews with maverick politicians and political commentators, this research explores the beliefs and actions of maverick politicians, a sub-group of actors within the policy-making process. It builds on previous research which focused primarily on the characteristics and beliefs of maverick politicians. This research was undertaken to ascertain the process by which the politicians attain the maverick label; explore the environment within which these politicians operate; examine the methods maverick politicians use to achieve change in policy, parliamentary practices and the political landscape; and determine their effectiveness in implementing change. Attaining the maverick status involved politicians undergoing a process of alienation from their party. They struggled to implement policy initiatives and adopted an oppositional approach as they battled with an antidemocratic policy-making process. Often unable to effect significant policy changes maverick politicians attempted reformation of the parliamentary practices and the political landscape. However, these attempts merely entrenched existing undemocratic processes. The research findings suggest that because of their underlying beliefs of how Parliament should operate maverick politicians choose to give priority to their constituents rather than to their party and support a notion of democracy that is participatory rather than representative. These choices contribute towards their maverick behaviour; result in alienation from their party; and limit their long-term effectiveness as policy-makers by leading them to focus on reformation. It is likely that, unless changes which accommodate politicians with differing views of representation and democracy occur within the parliamentary and party systems, there will continue to be disillusioned MPs who become alienated from their political parties and follow the maverick path.Item James Cowan : the significance of his journalism : a thesis presented in three volumes in fulfilment of the requirement for the award of Doctor of Philosophy in History at Massey University, New Zealand(Massey University, 2019) Wood, GregoryThis thesis argues that to understand Cowan the historian, his interest in history and his way of writing history, one must return to the roots of his writing – his journalism. Cowan’s adroit penmanship meant that his history writing existed in close parallel to his journalism. His writing style varied little between the two areas, which meant that he reached a wide group of readers regardless of their reading level or tastes. His favourite topics included travel writing and recent history, that is, history in his lifetime. For a better understanding of how and why he wrote, some key aspects of his life and career have been selected for study. These aspects include his childhood, his early journalism as a reporter for the Auckland Star, and his later journalism for Railways Magazine. Finally, his legacy is considered from the viewpoint of his colleagues and contemporaries. Cowan the journalist was the making of Cowan the historian, and to better understand the strengths of his histories one must appreciate his journalistic background. Past and present cannot be easily separated, and his historical work becomes more clearly articulated in the present with the discovery of previously unknown material from the nineteenth century and representing a quarter of his journalism output. That material has can now be appreciated for what it is – as the wellspring of his writing, the original source of his histories.Item The lyric "I" and the anti-confessionalism of Frederick Seidel : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in English at Massey University, Manawatū, New Zealand(Massey University, 2019) Upperton, Tomothy LawrenceThis thesis investigates the anti-Confessionalist status of the lyric “I” in the poetry of Frederick Seidel and in a collection of my own poems. Seidel’s use of autobiographical details, including his own name, in his poems has been treated by critics as an invitation to identify the lyric “I” with the poet himself. His poetry has been discussed by both his admirers and his detractors in a Confessional context. To his admirers, Seidel extends the Confessional poetry tradition in exciting ways, breaking new taboos as he incorporates details from his glamorous, privileged lifestyle into his poems. To his detractors, he is a retrograde reactionary, stale and derivative. I argue that although Seidel uses Confessional strategies, and owes obvious debts to Confessional poets, his poetry is fundamentally outward rather than inward looking; it is a poetry of cultural critique, and not of personal revelation. This outward looking focus also distinguishes Seidel’s poetry from various post-avant poetics that, in their own sophisticated ways, are as concerned with the subjective, lyric “I” as Confessional poetry is. I argue that in Frederick Seidel’s poetry, the lyric “I” is of interest insofar as it provides a means of cultural critique—a way of interrogating the complicity of the individual in its engagement with capitalism in its various aspects. In the poems that comprise the creative component of my thesis, the influence of Seidel is evident in their tone, their outward focus, and their limited interest in the lyric “I.” I have attempted in these poems to get beyond the absorption with the self that I perceive to be a besetting quality in much contemporary mainstream poetry. The various post-avant poetics explored in my research seem in their own ways deeply invested in the lyric “I.” Seidel’s poems offered other possibilities, other ways of representing the subject in the world, and of critiquing that world, that I could use in my own poems.Item Lesbian style : designing a lesbian fashion collection : a thesis submitted in partial fulfilment for the degree of Master of Design, Massey University, Wellington, New Zealand(Massey University, 2019) Browne, NenehLesbian style and expression is an area of fashion which is underrepresented in the fashion industry as well as in the teachings of fashion. Fashion as an industry is overwhelmingly viewed as a gay man’s domain as men make up a majority of creative director positions in western fashion houses and many of fashion’s most influential figures are openly gay men (Pike 2016). Lesbians by comparison are associated primarily with being unfashionable – and more harshly in accordance with heterosexist feminine standards – ugly (Karaminas 2013). Through this research project, I explore how style is utilised and influenced by the lesbian experience and propose that, despite stereotypes, lesbian style goes beyond Birkenstocks and dungarees and can be used as an influence for subversive contemporary design. This research is made up of two components – an analysis of lesbian style history in the 20th century cumulating in the 1980’s, followed by an exploration of 80’s club and subcultural styles. There is a particular focus on the design practices of Vivienne Westwood, Walter Van Beirendonck and Elsa Schiaparelli. This analysis acts as the primary focus for the second component: a design practice outcome of five fashion looks using a bricolage and historic revivalist methodology inspired by 80’s subcultural style. The design outcome aims to showcase how clothing can be designed with specific lesbian coding.Item A searchlight on New Zealand : what the visit of an imperial battlecruiser tells us about the country in 1913 : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in History at Massey University, Palmerston North, New Zealand(Massey University, 2019) Romano, GailThe experience of the tour [of the battlecruiser HMS New Zealand] in both imperial and local New Zealand terms, and the insights this offers into the country’s social and political landscape in 1913, are the subjects of this thesis. Three key questions provide the framework for investigating the environment that provided the backdrop to the tour and which, in large part via the press, both set people’s expectations for encounters with the ship and influenced subsequent narratives. It is instructive first to consider, what did the New Zealand’s tour suggest about the country’s relationships within the empire in 1913? This question offers interesting reflections not only on the imperial mind in 1913 but also on the way New Zealanders perceived themselves and their country, as well as on the attitudes towards New Zealand expressed by representatives of the ‘Mother Country’ and the sibling dominions. To begin building a view of the dominion’s pre-war nature that extends beyond the accepted trope, the thesis asks two questions focused on lived experience. What attitudes did various groups of people adopt towards the visit? What does the visit of the battlecruiser tell us about New Zealand society in 1913? By examining the reactions of four different categories of New Zealanders within the context of their individual ‘worlds’, those with official responsibilities, Maori, children and those with political and/or social sympathies outside the mainstream, it is possible to draw a nuanced picture of who New Zealanders were, what had shaped society as a whole and what influences continued to be felt. In short, the battlecruiser’s visit to New Zealand can play a key role in researchers’ understanding of what imperialism actually meant within the dominion and how it was translated in everyday experience. The findings of this thesis will contribute to a more nuanced understanding of how the visit and its reception fit into the historiography of New Zealand’s relationship with the British Empire. They will also show that, as a micro study, the 1913 tour provides much material to allow the drawing of a multi-dimensional picture of New Zealanders and New Zealand society prior to the First World War.--From IntroductionItem Impressions of war : the private propaganda of Ford Madox Ford and Virginia Woolf : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in English at Massey University, Manawatū, New Zealand(Massey University, 2018) Anderson, MirandaIn this thesis I will explore the relationship between modernist fiction, the world wars, and British war propaganda, with its foundational distinction between soldier and civilian experience. This exploration will focus on the novels of two modernist authors who seem to fall on either side of this distinction: Ford Madox Ford, a soldier, veteran, and propagandist, and Virginia Woolf, a self-proclaimed anti-war civilian. Existing scholarship on Ford and Woolf has served to reinforce British war propaganda’s guiding distinction between experience on the war front and the home front by examining Woolf as an apolitical female civilian and Ford as a conventional soldier writer. However, this binary fails to acknowledge the full spectrum of war experience, which unfolds both on the front and at home in similar ways, resonating in the lives of both soldier and civilian figures within and beyond fiction. This thesis examines these resonances and challenges existing critical accounts of Ford and Woolf through a comparative representational analysis of Ford’s The Good Soldier (1915) and Parade’s End (1924-28), and Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway (1925) and Between the Acts (1941), revealing that these novels challenge the state-sanctioned opposition between soldier and civilian experiences. Through the analysis of three “formal-experiential constellations” central to these novels—cyclical temporality, fragmentation, and stream of consciousness—I will argue that Ford and Woolf’s fictional representations of war experience, and the modernist devices they use to capture these experiences, serve both to evoke the lived experience of war, and to undermine the false propagandist model of war experience. Together, these devices communicate a model of war experience that more closely aligns with a lived experience that is often cyclical, fragmentary, and intersubjective. In this process they create a pluralistic, shared, and distinctly modernist vision of war: a kind of private propaganda.Item From colonial past to New Zealand classroom : the biographical narrative of Will Potter, commercial secondary school teacher (1958-1976) : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Education at Massey University, Manawatū, New Zealand(Massey University, 2018) Burne, Jacqueline MoniqueThis thesis tells the teaching story of one post-primary Commerce teacher, Will Potter—my father. Will taught in five New Zealand post-primary schools from 1958 until his retirement in 1976. This case study of Will looks at what makes his story unique: he was an immigrant of Dutch descent, whose first language was not English and who came to teaching without qualifications at age 51, and went on to write Commerce textbooks. He also began teaching at a significant time in New Zealand post-primary education—the 1950s, with rising school rolls and lack of teachers and facilities. This qualitative study of Will involved document analysis of his memoir, letters, and papers, a focus group discussion with Will’s three other children, and semi-structured interviews with people who taught with or were taught by Will. Four research questions guided the study, and sociocultural–historical theory was used as a framework to reveal the complexity of his personal, interpersonal, and wider contextual teaching story. Two major backdrop influences are revealed about Will’s life: his colonial background in what was the Netherlands East Indies (NEI; now Indonesia) and his internment in Japanese concentration camps during World War II (WWII). Reasons are provided for his decision to go teaching, and his pedagogical approaches are described. Of particular note is his storytelling, mainly of his internment experiences. He wrote eleven Commerce textbooks that were used in New Zealand post-primary and tertiary settings, as well as overseas. This story will add to the store of New Zealand teacher stories as well as contribute to the social history of the Dutch who were forced to leave the NEI post WWII.
