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    Becoming a ‘good’ Muslim woman : comparing habitus and everyday lived religiosity : an ethnographic study of Aotearoa New Zealand Muslim women : a dissertation presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Social Anthropology at Massey University, Palmerston North, Manawatu, New Zealand
    (Massey University, 2023-11-10) Cheema, Hina Tabassum
    For women like us Every day isn’t about a sunrise Every night isn’t about a sunset Between our sunrise and sunset There are puzzles to solve Of the pictures never seen before Missing and broken pieces And bits mixed up from other puzzles But surprisingly Sometimes we make them And other times, they break us And occasionally They are left unsolved Lingering in on our minds Becoming part of us This thesis is an ethnographic study of everyday lived experiences of Muslim women immigrants in Aotearoa New Zealand. Through a focus on everyday lived religiosity, I explore the lives of Muslim women, who are extremely diverse and in the state of becoming as depicted in the poem. I extend Bourdieu’s theory of Habitus by introducing Comparing Habitus as an analytical tool which allows us to comprehend and analyse the diversity, multiplicity, complexity, intersubjectivity, heterogeneity, fluidity and unfinishedness of Muslim women’s lived experiences in Aotearoa NZ. I also use Deleuze and Guattari’s notion of becoming and Das’s theory of everyday to understand the complex and intersubjective ways of becoming ‘good’ Muslim women and their negotiations of everyday challenges in a non-Muslim context. I use the framework of lived religion to capture my participants' experiences to understand these experiences as ordinary Muslims; e.g., what Muslims do rather than what Islam says. The use of poetry and autoethnographic commentaries throughout the thesis adds another layer to the analysis to confer insights and to help understand my participants’ experiences in more depth. The study concludes that being a Muslim woman immigrant in Aotearoa NZ is an ongoing agentive and complex process that is continuously defined and redefined, not always in a linear direction. Muslim women make sense of their lives through engagement with other Muslim women and use comparison as one of the key strategies to make everyday decisions. My research participants are on journeys to understand Islam more logically, using their agency to actively negotiate situations, and are constantly engaged in finding meaning in their lives. The study suggests the need to understand Muslim women as cultural and social beings who actively negotiate their everyday challenges.
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    Precarious feminine identities : a thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in The Department of Psychology at Massey University, Manawatu, New Zealand
    (Massey University, 2021) Weatherley, Guenevere E. W.
    This thesis explores, from a DeleuzoGuattarian perspective, the motivations that women find for, and the actions they undertake in leaving intimate partner relationships under which they have suffered emotional and physical derogation at the hands of their abusive other. It seeks to investigate and describe their "minoritarian" actions in the context of a DeleuzoGuattarian stylistic and strategic approach towards departing intimate partner violence (IPV). In this, as well as considering particular aspects of Deleuze and Guattari's conceptual apparatus, the study pursues the differences opened up by affirmative engagement with the hopefulness of virtualities, and the "lines of flight" these offer for creative possibilities, enduring connections, and novel - if precarious - identities. The extremes to which the women in this study were pushed reveal the stresses and conflicts in the bid for autonomy and equality inherent in unhappy intimate partner relationships without the frequent rhetoric that masks the difficulties of domestic life. Compounding these women's problems is the fact that there are few obvious avenues for escape for those trapped in abusive situations, limited support for independence, or programmatic advice on the broad social mandate they must negotiate. The women's stories reveal deep fissures in the structures of conventional New Zealand families by showing that the latter cannot accommodate or validate relationships that privilege outmoded gender practices over care, commitment, and opportunity for growth. Their stories articulate social and cultural uncertainties about the unstable positions of women in unequal relationships, that privilege outmoded gender practices over care, commitment, and opportunity for growth. Their stories articulate social and cultural uncertainties about the unstable positions of women in unequal relationships, the physically and emotionally draining demands to which they are subjected, and the struggle to find acceptance in their relationships, which are too often structured not by good will, affection and effort, but by traditional roles and economic hierarchies. The narratives contribute to the conversation on persecuted women's courage and determination to endure and resist, to develop lines of flight and to expand their lives despite intolerable pressures, as well as offering a DeleuzoGuattarian conceptual pragmatic underpinning of action. It shows that assertive independent action engenders empowering becoming, and it suggests that where women initiate schizonanalytic breaks, where they embrace precarity, they can discover creative and fulfilling lives.
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    Being big, becoming small : conversations with Māori women about weight loss surgery : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in Social Anthropology at Massey University, Albany, Aotearoa, New Zealand
    (Massey University, 2019) Joensen, Clare
    Weight loss surgery is increasingly being used to combat obesity, resulting in recipients becoming more visible in society. This in turn facilitates the normalising of what once would have been considered a radical medical procedure and the proliferation of discourse that more often than not measures success against models of slimness and appearance and underplays the downsides of surgery. Through the use of a narrative phenomenological approach, this research explores the experiences of surgery recipients, specifically Māori women, and asks the question; ‘how does the embodiment of radical change impact on relationality, interiority, conviviality, and ‘being in the world’?’ Through learning from Māori women, this research also explores how being Māori shapes experience both before and after surgery and in doing so, contrasts to literature which frames experiences of indigenous women through a Foucauldian lens of colonialism. I argue that, as Māori, these women are supported by the collective – significantly so – but also have to grapple with and push back negative discourses that leak into their world. I also argue that life post-surgery is entangled with both liminality and potentialities; precarious, unsettled and unsettling, while being simultaneously imbued with hope and focused towards an extending future. Surgery does transform bodies through enabling tremendous weight loss but also transfigures far more than it is designed to do.