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Item Constructing New Zealand's landscape : a thesis presented in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in History at Massey University(Massey University, 1999) Edwards, Cecilia AnneThis study considers some of the ways European visitors to New Zealand, prior to 1840, constructed the New Zealand landscape through their published accounts. In examining what was written about the New Zealand landscape, a number of questions arise: How did these early writers construct the New Zealand landscape? To what extent were their prior understandings and knowledge modified or simply confirmed by their new experiences? What are the implications for interpretation, given the derived nature of the published accounts? To what extent do the accounts allow for multiple readings over time? Finally, given hindsight, is it possible to read these texts as anything other than appropriative? It attempts to deal with these large questions by focusing on four roles of the published accounts: naming and associating, resource inventorying, locating Maori within the landscape, and 'aestheticising' the landscape through the use of convention and vivid prose. The process of 'deconstruction' yields good returns, especially in tracing ways in which European presence, activity and writing inscribed European values onto a new landscape. The study questions whether, individually and collectively, the accounts are more complex than might be suggested by a straightforward reading of them as foreshadowing colonisation. It takes the view that the landscapes, constructed by the account writers, do not fit any single construct easily. Other preoccupations and obsessions surface in the texts that, in combination, destabilise a single interpretative model. In examining what others have made of these earlier landscape constructions, the study also considers present day preoccupations. The sub-text, then, is about how these landscapes continue to be constructed for present day purposes.Item Banal nationalism and New Zealand human geography : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Philosophy in Geography at Massey University(Massey University, 1999) Henry, MatthewNationalism has often been linked with the 'irrational other', and consequently, as a form of nationalist discourse, the routine articulation of national identities in 'Western' nations has often been overlooked. In order to uncover the routine nationalism of 'Western' nations the thesis draws upon the theoretical concept of 'banal nationalism' in combination with poststructuralist ideas of a performative subjectivity. Using this approach the thesis presents a discursive analysis of a series of human geography texts presented in the New Zealand Geographer between 1945 and 1990. During this period the thesis identifies a series of epistemological discontinuities in New Zealand human geography, partly reflecting New Zealand human geography's position vis-à-vis Anglo-American human geography. However, the thesis also identifies a common thread in New Zealand human geography, that reiterates human geography's relevance to 'the nation' Through the banal and rhetorical reiteration of 'the nation' in New Zealand's human geography discourse the thesis argues that New Zealand human geography has performatively constituted the New Zealand 'nation' as the unimagined context for social life. In this sense the thesis suggests that, rather than merely reflecting the social context in which New Zealand human geography is situated, through the performative unimagination of 'the nation', New Zealand human geography is a partly constitutive of that 'nation'. Consequently, the thesis notes that geographers need to maintain, and develop, a critical attitude towards the banal elements of social life, because it is through these banal elements that myriad forms of power are expressed.