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    Te Moeone Mārakai : connection, ahi kā and healing : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctorate in Public Health at Massey University, Albany, Aotearoa, New Zealand
    (Massey University, 2022) Taiapa, Ken
    There are significant Māori led initiatives in Aotearoa New Zealand that seek to uplift the wellbeing of people and whenua through assertion of rangatiratanga, connection and reconnection. Rangatiratanga, combined with other living philosophies and practices such as ahi kā, manaakitanga, mana whenua and kaitiakitanga, provides a foundation for the development and implementation of such initiatives. One common expression of Māori (and non-Māori) community action in relation to respectful environmental relationships and connection, is through community gardens. This approach to collective food production is recognised for its ability to increase access to fresh, healthy food, promote physical activity, build community, and share knowledge and practices in relation to food gardens. Mārakai, as they are known in Māori communities have multiplied to the point where they can be found in most towns around the country. My doctoral study is set at Tārereare, a small holding of Māori-owned land situated on top of Mangaone Hill, in New Plymouth city. A relocated house serves as a whare for the mana whenua, Ngāti Tāwhirikura hapῡ, one of eight hapū that make up Te Atiawa iwi. Adjacent to this is an additional acre of land no longer owned by the hapū that has been converted into a mārakai known as Te Moeone. I worked with Ngāti Tāwhirikura hapū as they pursued the reignition of ahi kā, a vision articulated in their aspirations framework, developed in response to a challenging Treaty claims settlement process. To achieve this, I followed the development and implementation of their food-production vision and other related initiatives aimed at restoring their social, cultural, and environmental wellbeing. Through haerenga kitea video records, qualitative interviews, hui and wānanga, we explored the reconnection of the hapū to their tūrangawaewae through the mārakai. The story of the mārakai is one of tensions and challenges inherent in the Treaty claims settlement process and the emergence of the aspirations framework to assert values of peace, rangatiratanga and ahi kā. As a vehicle to pursue these aspirations, the mārakai brought the hapū and other community members together, with impacts across multiple domains of identity, mana, hauora and hapūtanga.
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    "We just have to get them growing their own food" : The cultural politics of community gardens : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Anthropology at Massey University, Manawatu, New Zealand
    (Massey University, 2020) Webb, Virginia
    Community gardens remain a popular and persistent response to a range of social ills from food security to social isolation. Scholars often frame gardens as political movements, sites of radical opposition to a globalised, homogenised and hegemonic food system. From this perspective, gardeners are actively cultivating a more environmentally sustainable and socially just way of producing and distributing food and seeking alternative ways of feeding communities. There is no consensus on this perspective, however, and the literature offers a lively debate on the extent to which gardens reinforce or subvert socio-economic structures and inequalities. My research adds to this debate by providing an analysis that shows how community gardens work as sites of identity construction where dominant cultural values are transmitted to select gardeners by those with a sense of governmental belonging. My research is an ethnographic and auto-ethnographic examination of what garden organisers or instigators think they are doing when they do community gardens. I find that garden organisers are trying to shore up a national identity that they perceive as being at risk of being lost. This identity reflects the values of self-reliance, thriftiness, and good neighbourliness that organisers consider themselves to embody and that they believe others lack. It is possible to interpret these values as being symptomatic of processes of neoliberalisation, and the gardens as evidence of the successful depoliticisation of issues of food security and hunger. However, I find that they also reflect deep concern about, and resistance to, these processes. Garden organisers draw on nostalgia for a positively evaluated past world in response to a deficient present world. By invoking the past, gardeners mobilise to overcome what they consider to be the contemporary experience of loss of identity, and absence of community. I joined three community gardens as a volunteer in Palmerston North, Aotearoa New Zealand, to explore the motivations of garden organisers. In each site, I found complex and transversal processes of governance and resistance. I have interpreted these using a theoretical framework assembled from the work of Ghassan Hage on governmental belonging and the politics of hope; Michel Foucault’s work on governmentality and resistance; and Gilles Clément’s work on the agency of plants. I spent intensive time in the gardens, growing garden produce and taking it home to eat. The materiality of the gardens and produce revealed a set of assumptions about the availability of domestic labour and enabled me to build up a detailed picture of the limitations and potential community gardens as sites of alternate ways of doing food and community.
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    'Lady, is this civilisation?' : a case study of community participation in a health development programme in Aotearoa New Zealand : a thesis presented in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Development Studies at Massey University, Palmerston North, New Zealand
    (Massey University, 2008) Batten, Lesley Susan
    Community participation is a key feature of major global health declarations and a fundamental principle of health strategies in Aotearoa New Zealand. However, the frequency with which it is espoused belies the complexities associated with its practical application. Engaging communities in primary health care programmes designed to improve their health has been identified as a major challenge. This study’s objective was to explore community members’ perspectives of participation within a health development programme. The programme chosen aimed to increase the fruit and vegetable intake of targeted population groups, including M ori, Pacific peoples, and low income earners. A qualitative instrumental case study approach was adopted to examine the programme and investigate what influenced, constrained, and sustained community participation. Data collection included fieldwork over an eighteen-month period. Two programme projects were selected as the study foci: a communityled project involving distributions of thousands of free heritage variety plants; and, instigated by health services, a project establishing community gardens. These projects provided markedly different pictures of participation occurring within the same programme. The plant distributions had widespread appeal, while the community garden faltered. Community participation fitted within a description of ‘focused social action’. Participation was motivated by needs, values, and interests. While some were personal and family based, the programme also became an imagined vehicle for addressing wider health, social justice, and environmental sustainability goals. Ongoing challenges related to defining targeted communities and groups, varying degrees and types of participation, and different perspectives of participation, especially as health sector staff worked from an equity mandate and community members spoke of equality. Programme groups established as mechanisms to foster community participation had contradictory effects, engaging some as advisors, while failing to reach communities targeted for the programme. The complexities of health sector bureaucracy both enabled and constrained the programme and community participation. This thesis provides an in-depth examination of the complexities of community participation in action, the contradictory effects of contexts enveloping programmes, and the resolve of community members. It increases our understandings of how community members perceive health programmes and community participation, which are critical factors in improving population health.