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Item Tongan indigenous approaches in the prevention and restoration of family violence : 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, 2023) Havea (née Taufa), SesimaniSubstantive literature exists on intimate partner violence and the efficacy of various response programmes. There is only limited knowledge of Pacific-indigenous understandings of and responses to violence within the kainga (families). This thesis explores aspects of the inaugural application of the Tongan conceptual framework of Fofola e fala ka e talanoa e kainga (laying out the mat so families can dialogue) as part of the faith-based Kainga Tu’umalie (prosperous families) family violence intervention and prevention programme in Aotearoa New Zealand. The programme is centred around weekend retreats involving Tongan households experiencing family violence. I was culturally immersed in observing, actively engaging in, and evaluating this programme during the retreats that involved 49 Tongan church kainga (families). Additionally, formal talanoa (a Pacific-indigenous way of engaging families in research) were conducted post retreat with seven faith-based community leaders to draw out their depth of cultural knowledge and how it was applied to the development and conduct of the programme. As well as drawing on the evaluative materials, talanoa were conducted with three participating families to further consider their experiences of the programme. Overall, this study found that Tongan indigenous cultural ways infused with faith-based values can be effective, transformational, and restorative for individuals and families experiencing violence. Core findings are encapsulated by three intersecting Tongan-Indigenous cultural concepts of: Ko e makatu’unga mo’ui mo e malohi (a powerful and living platform); Koe kolo malu mo e hufanga (a place of safety & refuge), and Fa’utaha (unity/harmony/peace). These concepts not only represent the interweaving of Christian faith and Tongan indigenous knowledge as symbolised by the Fofola e fala (laying out the mat) framework, but also inform our shared understanding of the intent and impacts of the Kainga Tu’umalie programme. These concepts also enlighten my analysis of the positive impacts of the programme on participating families’ and their commitments to engaging in efforts to transform their everyday interactions to create more harmonious relationships within which they can thrive together. Participant accounts foreground the importance and potential of working with key faith-based and cultural values to address patterns of violence collectively within Tongan kainga (families), and with support from wider community members. This research also speaks to the significance of leveraging collaborative partnerships between community-based agencies and faith-based communities in addressing social issues.Item Men's work : narratives of engaging with change and becoming non-violent : a thesis presented in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Psychology at Massey University, Manawatū, New Zealand(Massey University, 2024-07-26) Kean, Matthew JosephFamily violence continues to be a harsh reality for many families, whānau and communities around New Zealand. The primary aim of this project is to produce new possibilities for the violence prevention sector by linking theory and community practices supporting men, and their families, with pathways of change in relation to their cultural, gendered, socio-economic, and religious experiences of the world. In partnership with Gandhi Nivas, a community-based organisation providing early intervention support services to families in the Auckland region, I collaborate with men accessing Gandhi Nivas for support to bring to the fore an ethics of care empowering non-normative processes of change towards non-violence. Informed with the philosophies of Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari, I provide an autoethnographic analysis of fieldwork experiences, 1:1 interviews, and a weekly men’s social support group, expanding on Rosi Braidotti’s nomadic theory to privilege narratives of events, felt experiences, and embodied memories of different institutional, legal, political, and socio-cultural forces conditioning men’s every day social worlds. With narratives as a form of re-remembering men’s sticky networks of affective memories, I experiment with nomadic subjectivity as a cartographic methodology capable of tracing sensorial data with enlivening moments of bodily sensation. This is not a straightforward task. A complex project, I craft a mosaic of affective connections with selections of notes, transcripts and events reverberating flows of materiality that produce changes to specific social, political, gendered, and cultural locations, enabling me to reflexively analyse what experiences follow me, what social processes I have articulated, and what processes are left off the page. I elaborate an understanding of nomadic subjectivity as a tactic enabling me to bear witness to both men’s capacities for violence and non-violence within men’s social world, by unfolding affective memories with a series of textually connected hesitations, pauses, and irruptions of social forces conditioning how we experience the world. Informed with Deleuzian political thought, nomadic narratives help me materialise different, unpredictable arrangements of fluxes, flows, and forces with indefinite processes of individuation, providing different potentials, capacities, and limits past the limits of normative knowability. Retrospectively evoking the complexities of following the affective movement of men, which we bring out into the community and to others, this research positions non-violence not just as the absence of violence, but as an iterative process of embodying variations in arrangements and connections of thought processes, propelling alternative modes of relations empowering an ethics of care and concern for others through which violence becomes less possible, reduced, and mitigated. Engaging with an organisation that celebrates difference within ethical frameworks of care informing a diversity of professional practices and experiences, this collaborative, community-oriented research project embraces embodied understandings of change processes men experience whilst in the care of Gandhi Nivas, and puts to work DeleuzoGuattarian non-normative subjectivities of affectivity and intensity as entry points to resonate embodied materiality I cannot know—but feel. With men invoking becomings of non-violence unable to be represented with normative masculinities and hegemonic notions of violence and non-violence, writing a nomadic subject enables me to attend to how different experiences of forces act on and through us, affirming empowering productions of a self with the material and discursive possibilities of men’s daily life.Item Working with interpreters in the family violence sector in Australia: “It's very hard to be in between”(Elsevier B.V., 2023-08-14) Sullivan C; Block K; Murray L; Warr D; Chen J; Davis E; Murdolo A; Vaughan CThis study explores the role of interpreters and experiences of interpreting within family violence service provision in Australia. Data were drawn from the ASPIRE Project, a community-based participatory research project involving in-depth interviews with service providers (n = 57) and refugee and migrant women who had experienced family violence (n = 46), and a focus group discussion with interpreters (n = 4). The findings show that interpreting services are often inadequate and can create additional safety risks through breaches of confidentiality and other practices that undermine women experiencing family violence. Interpreters themselves are insufficiently supported to undertake the complex and sometimes traumatising task of working in family violence service provision. Cultural conceptions around gender that arise in family violence situations can complicate interpreted interactions, with each party to the triad bringing their own intersectional experiences. Expectations of the role of the interpreter in this context are at times expanded to the role of cultural and institutional broker by service providers. In contrast, migrant and refugee women interviewed prioritised a model based on directly interpreted interactions embedded in the norm of impartiality to promote trust in this high-risk practice area.Item Drawing wisdom from the Pacific: A Tongan participative approach to exploring and addressing family violence(Taylor and Francis Group, 2023-08-15) Havea S; Alefaio-Tugia S; Hodgetts DThe development of qualitative research approaches that are embedded within a Tongan worldview and associated relational practices is pivotal to enhancing knowledge of, and culturally-informed responses to violence within the Tongan kainga (family). We are currently in the early stages of such developments. This reflexive methodological article draws conceptual insights and cultural concepts from the exemplar of a Tongan faith-based family violence prevention programme, which was developed by Tongan community practitioners in Aotearoa New Zealand. We document the adaptation of Tauhi va (nurturing loving and harmonious relationships), Nofo (indigenous cultural immersion), and Talanoa (Pacific indigenous ways of dialogue and discussion) in the design and documenting of this culturally-embedded response to such violence. Elsewhere, we have documented the violence programme in question and its implications for participating families, and the broader faith-based community and leaders. In this article we present a Tongan methodology that we hope is used for other scholar activists also engaged in participative action-oriented research within Tongan and other Indigenous communities more broadly.Item Be(com)ing men in another place : the migrant men of Gandhi Nivas and their violent stories : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Psychology at Massey University, Manawatū, Aotearoa New Zealand(Massey University, 2021) Mattson, AnthonyThe social issue of family violence in Aotearoa New Zealand is pervasive, profoundly gendered, and complexified through intersectionalities including poverty, unemployment, and ethnic and racial marginalisation. Speaking truth to power is important for victims of violence. However, men who use violence are often isolated and ignored because of their violence, and their stories are seldom heard. This research brings men who use violence back into our responses by exploring the complexities of their accounts using the conceptual apparatus of Deleuze and Guattari to rupture dominant representations and interpretations. This study is based at Gandhi Nivas, a community-led early intervention initiative in South Auckland. It follows a year of interactions with migrant men from India, South East Asia, and the Pacific Islands. All of the men have used violence against women. Unlike essentialising societal discourses that reductively characterise men who use violence as perpetrators, offenders, or deviant Others, the men’s stories are complicated and messy, with descriptions of authoritarian and patriarchal childhood experiences, obstructed agency and exploitation, anti-productive connections, and conflicting desires. The men’s gendered understandings move and their storying is often ambivalent and contradictory. Differences that emerge are not only differences between the men, but also for each man, and reflect movements that they make in their locatedness during their storying. To write these multiplicities and subjectivities into the thesis, I introduce a novel approach––Rhizography, or ‘writing the rhizome’––to disrupt the normalities of representation, interpretation and subjectivity. I am guided in this research by an ethic of care that is gendered, performative, and immanent, through which I plug into the research as a special kind of Deleuzo-Guattarian desiring-machine: a nurturing-machine that becomes a site of production to connect with men who use violence and hear their stories. A semi-autobiographical narrative also emerges in which I examine the tensions of simultaneously becoming ethical activist and researcher. The study contributes to new understandings about violence against women, by enabling movement beyond dominant perspectives of violence against women as pathologised behaviours to refocus analysis on the encounters between men who use violence and the broader social structures in which violence occurs.Item Voices from the family violence landscape : gifts of experiences, understandings and insights from the heart of the sector : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Psychology at Massey University, Manawatū, New Zealand(Massey University, 2020) Everest, Adrienne Roslyn JoyFamily violence continues with a ferocious tenacity to impact on the lives of many people. This study brings voices with insight and understanding, spanning decades of experience, that highlight how much work is still to be done to eliminate family violence from Aotearoa New Zealand. Yet it also testifies to exciting developments, tells stories of success, and envisions futures that not only involve surviving but also dare to reach for thriving. Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis was used to gather understandings from nine participants, who shared a common experience of facilitating stopping violence programmes as well as a diversity of other experiences regarding family violence, and five consultants with expert knowledge in areas related to family violence such as child advocacy, integrated practice and kaupapa Māori responses. A two-stage process took place where findings from stage one were shared with others in stage two for their feedback and elaboration. Qualitative interviews were conducted in both stages and analysed through an idiographic, iterative coding process focusing on meaning and interpretation to produce understandings of the research contributors’ experiences. This process resulted in six superordinate themes with associated subordinate themes. The first three superordinate themes elaborate understandings of the conditions of abuse, in environments of marginalisation; the particular experiences of children and young people living the experience, yet too often silenced despite the valuable lessons they can teach us; and the many barriers to seeking help faced by adults experiencing abuse in the eye of the storm. The fourth theme highlights the way in which people impacted by abuse are experiencing the disconnection of help, in the shadow of empire builders. This manifests in a response system that creates barriers to comprehensive support, excluding key people, agencies, or cultural contributions; silencing voices of experience, and consequently formulating disconnected, ineffective solutions. Yet contributors also recognise significant successes and how going for gold creates many effective strategies and innovations, achieved through the hard work of dedicated people. The final superordinate theme draws together learnings, articulating a process that opens up to hermeneutics of the heart in which it becomes possible to avoid hostile reactions, victim blaming and disconnection through discovering the rhythm of families and enabling responsive work at the heart of the matter.Item Becoming (non)violent : accountability, subjectivity and ethical non-violence in response to intimate partner violence : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Psychology at Massey University, Manawatū, Aotearoa New Zealand(Massey University, 2019) Denne, StephanieThis thesis joins a movement of critical resistance and ethical activism problematising the increased institutionalisation of domestic violence interventions. A Eurocentric, capitalist, and neoliberal knowledge economy appears incapable of accounting for or accommodating the multiple, intersecting gendered social power relations and conditions of possibility that enable violence against women and children. Through a process of reflexive reading, I draw on the work of philosopher and feminist theorist Judith Butler, engaging with theories of accounting for oneself, subjectivation and ethical non-violence to analyse men and women’s narratives of (non)violence in the context of a men’s stopping violence programme. I interrogate the sociocultural regimes of intelligibility, subjectivity and morality that produce the accountability of gendered subjects of violence at sites of ethical exchange, and the consequences of such a production for those affected by, and responding to, domestic violence. Throughout the thesis, I question how systems of response and intervention reproduce power relations of domination and oppression through the production of fixed and inflexible identity categories of difference and dis-ease for targeted surveillance, regulation and discipline. Accounts of oneself are read critically as sites of embodied and embedded violence, where demands for narrative consistency and coherence enable the denial, minimisation and justification of men’s violence as a response to the risk of condemnation and subjective threat. I examine how patriarchal and colonising narratives tolerate, justify and encourage violence as a reiterative practice of hegemonic masculinity, where the embedded masculine subject self-regulates and disciplines their embodied subjectivity for authority and control within hierarchical gender binaries. I consider how feminine subjects are positioned as inferior to, or a ‘lack of’ the masculine ideal, enabling the dehumanisation, exclusion and silencing of women as objects and technologies for masculine privilege and domination. I conclude by advocating for ethical non-violence in domestic violence research and response, acknowledging our shared subordination and vulnerability to sociocultural regulatory regimes. I imagine how suspending the satisfaction of judgement and practices of patience can facilitate processes of articulation to exceed the constraints of violent subjectivities and engage in processes of ‘becoming’ within collaborative partnerships of resistance, transformation and non- violence.Item Te hā o te whānau : how Māori social service practitioners support whānau affected by whānau violence : Te hā o te whānau : how Māori social service practitioners support whānau affected by whānau violence(Massey University, 2015) Newth, AlameinThere is a dearth of knowledge regarding violence and Māori whānau written from the perspectives of Māori women, social service practitioners and other professionals, however, the literature comes from a national perspective. Literature from a local perspective is sparse on how Māori whānau affected by whānau violence are supported. This research explores the perspectives of four Māori social service practitioners on how they support whānau affected by whānau violence in the Eastern Bay of Plenty region. This research focuses on the exploration of a whole of whānau approach to whānau violence. It is not aimed at individuals. Rather, it is recognised that each person is a part of a collective and in terms of whānau violence, collective healing needs to occur. Consulting Māori social service practitioners about effective interventions and barriers to effective interventions may contribute to more beneficial outcomes for whānau, now and into the future so mokopuna grow up in violence-free homes. This research project draws on a kaupapa Māori qualitative methodology and a semi structured focus group interview was conducted with four Māori social service practitioners. The results of the research are consistent with the reviewed literature regarding the effects of colonisation on Māori, however, some new perspectives were offered regarding supporting whānau in rural communities. Government policy, decisions and funding that impacted on Māori social service practitioner’s ability to support whānau is of considerable concern. The formulation, design and implementation of kaupapa Māori interventions in the Eastern Bay of Plenty would be a step in a positive direction in order to effectively support whānau.Item Women's experiences of the policing of domestic violence : a thesis presented in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Masters of Arts in Psychology at Massey University(Massey University, 2008) Gillespie, Diane MadelineDomestic Violence is a pervasive crime. It weaves itself into the network of our society. In Aotearoa/New Zealand the Government has introduced legislation designed to reduce and prevent violence in the home and has seen an increase in reported domestic violence since its introduction. Despite some evidence to the contrary, when all types of violence are taken into account the majority of victims are women and children. Domestic violence can be best understood in terms of power and control in relationships, and gender relations in our society, and our socio-cultural-historical context. Given our current legislative context, policing is a critical dimension of effective intervention to reduce and prevent domestic violence. This research explores women's experiences of the policing of domestic violence in a rural, South Island locality. Alongside professional and university ethics, feminist research principles guided the researcher's engagement with women participants in semi-structured interviews. A narrative approach to research was used as a framework to gather, analyze and write up the accounts of nine women's experiences of the policing of domestic violence. Through this narrative approach a co-creative, fluid and dynamic relationship between the researcher and participants produced hybrid accounts and new insights and understandings in relation to domestic violence and the policing of this crime. Findings are presented as themes related to three clearly identified phases in the women's stories of policing: making contact, police responses and their impact, referrals and follow up. The research suggests there are still substantial problems for women's safety in relation to effective policing of domestic violence in Aotearoa/New Zealand from the standpoints of these women.Item Rebuilding lives : intimate partner violence and Kiribati mothers in New Zealand : a cooperative inquiry : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Philsophy in Social Work at Massey University, Auckland, New Zealand(Massey University, 2015) Teatao, Lydia IetaakeThis study explores strategies to rebuild lives as a result of intimate partner violence experienced by Kiribati migrant mothers in New Zealand through cooperative inquiry. Cooperative inquiry is a modality of participatory action research (PAR) based on people examining their own experience and action with those who share the same life experiences (Heron, 1996). It is also concerned with re-visualizing understanding of the world as well as transforming practice within it. As a result of working through an agreed set of actions, this process has empowered personal strength and courage for all those who took part, including myself. The method of cooperative inquiry is to be both a researcher and a participant and it does research with people but not on people. It is not about confirming or validating previous theories or hypotheses. It is about being deeply engaged with the human situation and inquiry initiated on a common interest shared by the group of participants. All participants, including the researcher, were Kiribati migrant mothers who have been violence free for at least two years. We all worked together as co-participants in this research project. The inquiry was underpinned by the Pacific Framework Talanoa with the Kiribati cultural context, aided by Te Itera model designed by the author. Key results are significant as they venture to restore and strengthen intimate partner relationships for Kiribati families residing in New Zealand. It contributes knowledge to social agency interventions regarding Kiribati families and their children and provides insights to future immigrants to New Zealand. Research participants also suggest that through being involved in a genuine research, they developed strength and courage commitment within their own extended families, communities and social connections in increasing awareness and education to alleviate intimate partner violence specifically targeting young families.