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Maori family culture: a context of youth development in Counties/Manukau
(Royal Society of New Zealand, 2007) Edwards, Shane; McCreanor, Tim; Moewaka Barnes, Helen
This paper reports on a study designed to bring the voices of young people directly into the social science literature on environmental influences on wellbeing. We analyse accounts from young Maori about their families and the roles they play in their lives in order to focus on strengths and positive resources for the promotion of youth wellbeing. Interview data were gathered from 12 females and 15 males, aged between 12 and 25 years, resident in the Counties/Manukau region. Participants who were managing satisfactorily in their lives were purposively selected for diversity of background and circumstances. Our “lifestory” approach sought narrative accounts of both everyday experience and the highs and lows of life; data were transcribed verbatim and analysed using discursive methods. Clusters of themes relating to family environments including relationships with parents, siblings and extended kin groups emerged. Participants provided detailed and nuanced accounts of family cultures, reporting on conflict, caring, gender issues, sensitivity, discipline, levels of guidance and forms of support.
Aid, education and adventure : an exploration of the impact of development scholarship schemes on women's lives : a thesis presented in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctorate of Philosophy in Development Studies at Massey University, Palmerston North, New Zealand
(Massey University, 2007) Wild, Kirsten Leila
This thesis examines the outcomes associated with women’s participation in development scholarship schemes. These schemes, which provide citizens from Third World countries with opportunities to undertake tertiary training abroad, have featured prominently within the development assistance programmes of many Western nations. However, the longer-term impact of this type of educational experience on the lives and communities of individuals who take up this form of aid remains under-studied. This is particularly the case for female development scholars, who have been both historically excluded from opportunities to take part in these schemes, as well as marginalised within academic evaluations of their outcomes. This research provides an in-depth qualitative exploration of the experiences of twenty women who have completed a tertiary qualification through a development scholarship scheme. The participant sample is diverse, and includes a group of New Zealand-based female doctoral students who have participated in several of these programmes, as well as two groups of women from Thailand who have returned home after taking part in a scholarship scheme funded by the New Zealand Agency for International Development. This research identifies a number of positive and negative outcomes for women associated with this distinct type of educational experience. Beneficial outcomes include greater emotional autonomy, increased cross-cultural knowledge, new professional networks, new work skills, and improved English-language competency. Participants within this research report that these benefits have translated into increased respect within their workplaces; new opportunities to represent their organisations at home and abroad; greater participation in international research and policy forums; increased control over negotiations with foreign consultants; and an enhanced commitment to collaboration with other professionals in the ASEAN region. Negative outcomes to arise out of the scholarship experience include role tension and relationship conflict for married women; career disruption associated with employment bonding and job restructuring during the period of absence abroad; new unwanted work responsibilities; and dissatisfaction with some aspects of quality of life in their country of origin. This thesis provides rich narrative material that increases our understanding of the concrete ways that this form of educational aid is ‘lived out’ in the lives and communities of female development scholars.
Contesting development : the experience of female-headed households in Samoa : a dissertation presented in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Development Studies, Massey University, Palmerston North, New Zealand
(Massey University, 2007) Stewart-Withers, Rochelle R.
There is a plethora of development literature, both academic and policy oriented, that problematises female-headed households in normative ways, positioning them as socially isolated, stigmatised, lacking in agency and poor, equated with the ‘feminisation of poverty’. Through positioning female-headed households as ‘other’ there is also a notable lack of regard for the diverse socio-political and cultural context which within female-headed households reside. By situating this research within a feminist postdevelopment framework, and through the use of participatory methodologies and the articulation of individual biographies of the development experience, this dissertation seeks to re-position our understanding of the development experience of female-headed households. Drawing on the case of Samoa, this study demonstrates how fa’asamoa (the Samoan way), inclusive of fa’amatai (customary system of governance), the feagaiga (brother/sister relationship) and the practice of fa’alavelave (demonstrating love and concern), all support the welfare and wellbeing of female-headed households, including any children born of these households. They also afford women in female-headed households a certain level of voice and agency. The thesis further highlights that the category of female-headed households was not well understood within Samoa because neither villagers nor policy makers labelled women in this way. Rather, women were recognised in relation to the cultural framework of fa’asamoa which situates them in terms of their position within their family, their natal village and the wider community. This illustrates the importance of culture when attempting to frame the development experiences of female-headed households in any part of the world. Development researchers and practitioners need to seriously question just how useful the practice of categorising and labelling is to Development Studies. In highlighting the problematic nature of universal labels and categories, this thesis concludes that the starting point of analysis for female-headed households needs to begin with the sociopolitical-cultural context, as opposed to the category of female-headed households. Shifting beyond a desire to uncritically categorise and label will provide a space for envisioning new approaches to development thinking and practice, and for truly seeing the ways that people struggle, often successfully, to create and pursue opportunities.

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