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    Wie is ek? : a study of Afrikaner identity in New Zealand : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in Social Anthropology at Massey University, Albany, New Zealand
    (Massey University, 2018) Finlayson, Kris
    Afrikaners have had a tumultuous history since the Dutch arrived in what is now known as Cape Town. Using Barth’s (1969) concept of ethnic boundary construction and maintenance, this research examines the state of Afrikaans identity in a New Zealand diasporic context. The research employs a novel approach to interview data collection, using a modified version of Wengraf’s (2017) biographic narrative interview method in conjunction with a dual-participant interview method. This approach allows a multiplicity of subjective viewpoints, exploring Afrikaner perceptions, their experiences, how they see themselves fitting into their Afrikaans community and how this community fits into New Zealand society. The findings from this study show that Afrikaners refer to a representation akin to a Barthian model of Afrikaner. Through interviews, participants implied this presentation which was then constructed into an analytic model for the study. The model they indicated consists of four key characteristics: heritage, faith as a cultural value, language and a conservative worldview. Participants referred to themselves against this model in order to ascertain how ‘typical’ they are regarding shared community behaviour and perspectives. The study then discusses this Afrikaner identity in a New Zealand socio-cultural context. It discovers that even though New Zealand and Afrikaner-South African societies are vastly different, New Zealand’s socially liberal worldview allows an easy transition for today’s comparatively diverse Afrikaners. This transitional process and ethnic boundary modification was found to impact Afrikaner identity in varying ways, particularly related to areas of personal security, new relationship formation and hospitality, manner of speech, and how they perceived what members of New Zealand society think about Afrikaners.
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    Knowing the honey bee : a multispecies ethnography : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in Social Anthropology at Massey University, Palmerston North, New Zealand
    (Massey University, 2017) Luttrell, Jordan
    Multispecies scholarship argues that the non-human has been relegated to the background of discussions about who and what inhabits and shapes the world. This thesis engages with this discussion as an experimental multispecies ethnography with honey bees in Manawatu, New Zealand. I aim to centre the honey bee in ethnography through engagement in the practice of fieldwork as well as the representation of the findings of this engagement. The honey bee is commonly known as an introduced, domesticated species, kept by humans in beehives in apiculture. This conceals the agency of the honey bee, rendering it passive, productive and compliant to the desires of humans, or in need of human intervention for survival. To view the agency of the bee I undertook embodied, performative ethnography, interviewing beekeepers and becoming one myself. My methodology, which was shaped by the bee, traced the networks that honey bees were enrolled in. Encounters were awkward, one-sided, and sometimes dangerous. The representation of honey bees demands an approach which attends to multiple, distinct accounts of honey bee worlds, because the bee is a lively agent, contributing to, experiencing, and communicating about the multiple networks in which it is engaged. As such, the findings of this thesis are presented in three accounts of encounters with honey bees. These accounts are distinct, capturing the honey bee in different networks, but are also distinct in their narrative styles, progressing from a description of honey networks in the spirit of Actor-Networks, to writing with honey bee narrator in poetry. Ethnographic representation is inevitably partial and an act of imagination. However, becoming sensitive to the ‘bee-ness’ of the bee; the waggle, hum and sting, and employing narrative inspired by the multisensory apiary, in other words, shaping representation with honey bees in mind, is an act of privileging honey bees in writing, and exploring what more can be said of, and with, the bee.
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    Together in the light : an ethnographic exploration of the Palmerston North Quakers' sense of community and shared understandings : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in Social Anthropology at Massey University, Palmerston North, New Zealand
    (Massey University, 2014) Keyes, Ian
    The Religious Society of Friends is a Christian denomination whose emergence can be traced back to the teachings of George Fox in the 1640s in England. Since that time the denomination has splintered, from which four branches of Quakerism have emerged. One of these branches is liberal Quakerism, which is the only type of Quakerism found in New Zealand. Liberal Quakers do not have any centralised doctrine or authority figures, and they take the view that practice is more important that one’s belief. This research focuses on the Palmerston North Quakers and specifically answers two sets of questions. The first is whether they have a sense of community, and if so, what gives them that sense of community. The second set of questions centres on what the Quakers shared understanding are in the context of their community boundaries, and what enables these understandings. As well as drawing on analysis from interviews with my research participants, this research also draws extensively on participant observation from Palmerston North and also from other groups in the North Island of New Zealand. All of which enables an understanding of the lived experience of being a Palmerston North Quaker. Underpinning my research is a bricolage of theoretical work. These include community theory from John Bruhn, David Minar and Scott Greer, Patricia Felkins, Susan Love Brown as well as Victor and Edith Turner’s concept of communitas, Randall Collin’s interaction ritual theory and James Fernandez’s work on consensus. The most significant theme to emerge from analysis was the importance of the Quaker’s silent meeting for worship. Whilst it may seem like an uneventful period of time to outsiders, its central importance to the community cannot be emphasised enough. Keywords: Anthropology; Communitas; Community; Consensus; Ethnography; Interaction ritual; Quakers; Religion; Religious Society of Friends; Ritual; Solidarity.
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    The practice of Chinese medicine in New Zealand : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in Social Anthropology at Massey University
    (Massey University, 1997) Baxter, Kim Gloria
    Chinese medicine has been practised throughout history in a variety of forms in a variety of countries. This study is concerned with discovering the particular form Chinese medicine has assumed in New Zealand. Data was collected by means of an ethnographic survey of 39 practitioners and 130 patients of Chinese medicine from throughout New Zealand. The thesis explores three main areas: first, what types of Chinese medical practices exist in New Zealand; second, who seeks and supports Chinese medicine as a health therapy in New Zealand; third, the perspectives that practitioners and patients of Chinese medicine have on the practice of Chinese medicine in New Zealand. An attempt is made to balance quantitative results with the qualitative descriptions and observations of the research participants. Primarily this thesis has been written with the needs of the research participants in mind - to be an independent source of information for them. Currently, Chinese medicine has no legislative protection in New Zealand, and there are a great variety of practitioner groups and practitioners practising "Chinese medicine" (particularly acupuncture) here. The research findings suggest that the practice of Chinese medicine in New Zealand has many forms, and is frequently fragmented and mixed with other health therapies. It is concluded that adaptation to context, including the presence of "non-Chinese" therapies, is a positive feature of Chinese medicine that long predate its arrival in New Zealand. KEYWORDS: CHINESE MEDICINE; ACUPUNCTURE; ALTERNATIVE AND COMPLEMENTARY MEDICINES; ETHNOGRAPHY.
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    Himalayan journeys : a mobile ethnography and philosophical anthropology : a thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Social Anthropology
    (Massey University, 2013) Howard, Christopher A.
    Based on a mobile, multi-sited ethnography conducted in 2011 in Nepal and Northern India, and employing a phenomenological and philosophical anthropological approach, this thesis explores contemporary journeys to the Himalayan region as a form of pilgrimage. Situating the phenomenon in a historical framework, I explore how the practices, performances and narratives of contemporary travellers in the Himalayan region reveal broader socio-historical and recent cultural trends with regard to modernisation and global mobility. Reflecting the realities and perceived deficiencies of contemporary life, the attitudes, ideals, experiences and stories of global travellers as ‘embodied cosmopolitans’ expressed numerous overlapping themes. These included, for example, movement and reflection, disaffection and leaving alienated life, ideals of authenticity and utopian imaginaries. Through semiotic and phenomenological analysis and interpretation of interviews and participant observation, this thesis unfolds and critically discusses the relational politics inherent in contemporary journeys in the Himalayan region. As a performance blending yet surpassing traditional genres of mobility such as tourism and pilgrimage, contemporary journeys in the Himalayas are viewed as a meta-social reflection of salient concerns of our times, including alienation, technologization and hyper-connectivity, relations between nature and culture and notions of ‘the good life’. Such journeys are explored as reflexive quests for re-orientations or re-understandings, as well as travelling into imagined pasts and possible (alternative) futures. Being typically critical of Western culture, travellers often demonstrated positive yet uncritical appraisal and nostalgia for all things perceived as exotic, non-modern and natural. Set against a perceived inauthentic, disenchanted and destructive West, the Himalayan region was often idealized for its natural and cultural purity and its aura as a spiritual, utopia. It is in such moral projections and utopian yearnings that we may read contemporary journeys such as those to the Himalayas and perhaps other global ‘power places’ as a paradoxical meta-critique and enactment of late modernity.
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    An ethnography of youth texts on gangs, trouble and rehabilitation : a dissertation presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Psychology at Massey University
    (Massey University, 1997) Eggleston, Erin Jon
    Guided by the premise that the best information about the experience of young people would come from young people contacted directly in the field, An ethnography of youth texts on gangs, trouble and rehabilitation focuses on the thesis that by carefully reading and attending to the spoken texts of youth, psychologists can enhance their understanding, learn from, and improve their relationships with them. Youth texts were generated from fifty three recorded interviews, one month participant-observation in a residential unit, one month participant observation with a neighbourhood gang, photography and many casual conversations in the field. Thematic analysis was used as a method for carefully reading participant texts and attempting to develop an understanding of what Geertz (1983) called local knowledge. Rehabilitation at Te Whakapakari Youth Programme (Great Barrier Island, New Zealand) was the first site where youth texts were gathered and discussed with an aim of capturing the richness of experience that exists in the lives of the programme participants. Looking back on their experience of the youth programme two years later participants described healing themes related to the experience of whaanau (extended family), helping, talking, listening, trusting, respecting and disciplined working. Trouble is the second site in which I tapped youth texts. I found trouble was conceptualised as fun, easy, and about being seen to be "bad." Participants did not perceive themselves to be "in trouble" unless they had been caught, although trouble was seen as a way to make money, a form of vulnerability and part of their social niche. The third site in which I probe for youth texts is in youth gangs. Over-riding most gang activity there seemed to be a desire for affiliation and belonging. They talked about the parties, hanging with "the boys," girls, telling jokes together, laughing, meeting new people, talking, arguing and public recognition or "fame." In terms of gender sub themes of "gangs are for men" and "caring for women" emerged as complimentary forms of exclusionary talk. If women crossed the gender line to attempt to function in "men's space" (as tomboys) they lost their supportive and prized sexual value but were still forced into a sexual role by the boys. While vulnerability increased the likelihood of seeking gang based protection, joining a gang dramatically increased participants' protection needs and scope of vulnerability. Increases in violence, threats and feelings of vulnerability were however, coupled with feelings of togetherness, helping, supporting and generally backing each other up. Key discussion issues included empowering indigenous approaches to rehabilitation, defining youth gangs and youth gang membership in New Zealand, the influences of American cultural imperialism on New Zealand youth, and the convergence of empirical data with theoretical perspectives on vulnerability. Suggestions were made for future research topics.
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    Food choices and feeding patterns for women and infants in rural northern Thailand : an ethnographic study : a thesis presented in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Nursing at Massey University
    (Massey University, 1992) Ratanawadee Boonyaprapa
    The question for this study arose from the situation that malnutrition remains one of the major health problems among Thai children, particularly the under-fives. The purpose of it was to develop better understanding as to what sustains beliefs and practices associated with infant nutrition. An ethnographic approach was chosen as the research method. One rural village in northern Thailand was selected as the site of fieldwork for a period of 10 months. Data were collected through participant observation, interview, and ethnographic records. Key informants were 18 pregnant women and mothers of the under-twos. General informants were elderly kinswomen, fathers of the under-twos, volunteer health workers and community health workers. From the data it can be argued that what each woman does with regard to her own nutrition during pregnancy and following childbirth and the feeding pattern that she adopts for her infant are the outcomes of interplay between a complex network of cultural, social, personal and situational factors. These act and interact as pushes and pulls in a woman's decision making, frequently conflicting. Four main sources of pushes and pulls are: traditional beliefs; personal factors including attitudes, feelings, needs and experiences; sociocultural situations and changes; and government health services. If nursing interventions aimed at promoting a well nourished woman and a well nourished child are to be effective, nurses must be aware of these multiple influences. The conceptual account generated from the findings of this study has potential value for nursing practice, education and research. It identifies the aspects amenable to change by nurses and other health workers in their work to counter malnutrition situation, and so to improve the health of mothers and children.