Title 9:

[Cover design: Rowan McCormick / Cover layout: Jack Ross ]

Writers of Passage

by Rowan McCormick

Edited by Jack Ross

Preface by Mary Paul

Afterword by Eleanor Rimoldi

Social and Cultural Studies 9
(June 2008)
ISSN: 1175-7132


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Abstract:

I considered the potential of ascribing ‘heroic’ significance to the events of our lives – to cast a more favourable reading on those hard times past, and yet to come.

Rowan McCormick’s monograph is based on an experimental and explorative research process - a leap of faith - from which has resulted a somewhat experimental and explorative essay. With reference to both anthropological and literary theory, a series of conversations with writers reveals the heroic nature of their existence.

This study celebrates the power of narrative to mediate a sense of the conditions of one's existence, to manipulate an audience, to affect conventions, to impress readers with notions about the other, to impress a sense of order upon a chaotic existence, to convey knowledge, and to affect a sense of connection between people.

Recognising what he calls ‘the generative and transformative power of the ethnographic process,’ Rowan's monograph examines the many ways in which we attempt to ‘write’ ourselves into significance. The result is a fresh and witty essay which combines insights from both English and Anthropology, and suggests fruitful new ways of reconciling the two disciplines.

Notes on Contributors:

Rowan McCormick is a graduate student in Massey's School of Social and Cultural Studies, majoring in Anthropology and Media Studies.

Dr Mary Paul is the Coordinator of the English Programme in the School of Social and Cultural Studies.

Dr Eleanor Rimoldi is the Coordinator of the Social Anthropology Programme in the School of Social and Cultural Studies.

Title 5:

[Cover photograph: Luke King / Cover image: fern sculpture by Virginia King]


A Third Term?
Evaluating the Policy Legacy of the Labour-led Government, 1999-2005

by Mike O'Brien, Jennifer Lawn, Fiona Te Momo & Neil Lunt

Introduction by Eleanor Rimoldi

Social and Cultural Studies 5
(August 2005)
ISSN: 1175-7132


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from the Introduction:

As I was born a citizen of a free State, and a member of the Sovereign, I feel that however feeble the influence my voice can have on public affairs, the right of voting on them makes it my duty to study them ...

- Jean Jacques Rousseau, 1762
The Social Contract, Book 1

This collection of essays by four academics in the School of Social and Cultural Studies goes beyond the usual brief of the School's monograph series in that it is not only directed at "scholars and students in the hu­manities and social sciences" but to the wider public in the tradition of the academic responsibility to act as critic and conscience of society. Put together on the eve of the 2005 New Zealand national election, they constitute both a record of recent history in four significant policy areas and a critical analysis of the effect of these policies on New Zealand society. The overall theme of the essays might be seen as one of social justice and each essay focuses on policy areas that affect those who could be seen as representative in one way or another of minorities in our society – the poor, creative artists, Māori, and people with disabilities.

Mike O'Brien's essay is an evaluation of social policies that can have the effect of excluding groups of people from full participation in society on the basis of economic disadvantage.

Jennifer Lawn's essay reviews Labour Party policy on the creative arts, which has seen an increase in financial support in many areas. How­ever, the accompanying closer integration with the economic interests of the state is viewed with some unease.

Fiono Te Momo sees the various political parties as divided between two "camps" - those who see the Treaty of Waitangi as divisive, and those who see the Treaty as uniting the nation. She analyses policy statements on the website of each of the political parties in order to assess whether these policies seek the development or the annihilation of Māori culture.

In the final essay Neil Lunt takes up the issues of government policy that affects disabled people and their opportunity to take part in New Zealand society as full citizens. ...

- Eleanor Rimoldi

Notes on Contributors:

Dr Jennifer Lawn lectures in the School's English and Media Studies programmes. Her teaching and research interests include contemporary New Zealand cultural studies, women's writing (particularly Janet Frame and Margaret Atwood), and Gothic literature and film. She has co­authored further articles on recent New Zealand cultural policy, forth­coming in the film journal PostScript, the Rodopi volume Global Fissures: Postcolonial Fusions, and the Columbia University Press volume The Lord of the Rings Text in Context. Email: j.m.lawn@massey.ac.nz.

Dr Neil Lunt teaches social policy studies and research methods in the School. His research interests include welfare reform, the policy process, disability, and the role of evidence in policy and practice. Email: n.t.lunt@massey.ac.nz.

A/Prof Mike O'Brien is Head of the School of Social and Cultural Studies on Massey's Auckland campus. He teaches in the social work and social policy programmes at Massey where he has been a staff member since 1980. He has undertaken research and written extensively 011 a range of areas in social work and social policy. Recent work includes a review of the research on the effect of workfare on children and a third edition of the co-authored text Social Policy in Aotearoa/New Zealand. He is currently engaged in research on social exclusion and social work, the not-for-profit sector, and accommodating the needs of mental health service users. Email: m.a.obrien@massey.ac.nz.

Dr Fiona Te Momo lectures in the School's Māori Studies and Social Work programmes. Her discipline is Development Studies and she lec­tures in Community Development, Māori Development, and Social Ser­vices. Current research activities include exploring Māori perspectives on biotechnology and work-life balance. She affiliates to Ngati Raukawa, Ngati Porou, and Ngati Konohi tribes and has worked with political groups in the Tai Rawhiti Region. Email: f.temomo@massey.ac.nz.

Title 2:

[Cover photograph: Luke King / Cover image: fern sculpture by Virginia King]


Pain and the Body Politic

by Grant Duncan
with a discussion by Victoria Grace

Introduction by Eleanor Rimoldi & Jennifer Lawn

Social and Cultural Studies 2
(June 2002)
ISSN: 1175-7132



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from the Introduction:

The therapeutic process does not begin and end with the discrete therapeutic event, and to study it in that way diminishes its character and significance as a social process. This is true first in the sense that the goals of a therapeutic system exist within a histori­cal and social context of values and necessarily have an orientation to that context. The culturally presupposed goal of therapy may be to facilitate a person's adaptation to society or, on the other hand, to criticize societal demands and motivate the person toward crea­tive personal change and social reform. In a second sense, the therapeutic process cannot be understood as bounded by the thera­peutic event precisely because it is directed at life beyond the event. If therapeutic transformation is to occur, it must occur not only in the event but in a person's life between events, as a social and experiential process. (Csordas & Kleinman, 1990, p. 25)

This second discussion paper in our Social and Cultural Studies series is a wide-ranging exploration of the nature of pain. That Grant Duncan should from the very start associate personal pain with the "body politic" is particularly relevant for New Zealand Maori: ill-health, both physical and mental, has been associated with the history of colonisation and con­tinued disadvantage in this country. That "pain" can be both socially experienced and socially "caused" is not a new concept for an anthropologist. As the above quotation from Csordas and Kleinman suggests, the "therapeutic event" - a client's consultation with a health pro­fessional, for example - ought not be analysed in isolation from the "historical and social context of values" within which pain is experienced. ...

- Eleanor Rimoldi & Jennifer Lawn

Notes on Contributors:

Dr Grant Duncan is a senior lecturer in the Social and Public Policy programmes, School of Social and Cultural Studies, Massey University (Auckland campus). His research has covered the relationship between policy institutions and the well-being of people, particularly concerning chronic pain and injury-compensation systems.

Prof Victoria Grace is a Professor of Sociology at the University of Canterbury. She has published widely on sociocultural understandings of chronic pain, particularly chronic pelvic pain in women. Her work in this field extends from empirical research on use of the health services and prevalence of chronic pelvic pain in New Zealand, to theoretical cri­tiques of problems generated by the onto-epistemological assumptions of the biomedical model and its more recent appropriation of the biopsycho­social model. Current research includes investigating "meanings" of chronic pain and associated methodological questions related to language and embodiment.

Title 1:

[Cover photograph: Luke King / Cover image: fern sculpture by Virginia King]


Negotiating the Boundaries:
The Politics of Cross-Cultural Research in the Social Sciences - A Symposium
(Massey University, Auckland Campus, 16 July 2001)

Introduction by Jennifer Lawn and Eleanor Rimoldi

Social and Cultural Studies 1
(November 2001)
ISSN: 1175-7132


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from the Introduction:

We are delighted to open the Social and Cultural Studies monograph series with the edited transcript of a seminar convened by Associate Professor Marilyn Waring, "Mono-Bi-Multi Cultural Research: Who Should Do What and When?" Held on July 16, 2001 at massey University's Auckland campus, the seminar addressed the ethics of research with ethnic groups in New Zealand's increasingly multicultural society.

The panellists reflect on issues such as:

• Is there a place for Pakeha in research on other ethnicities?
• Who should study whom?
• What is insensitive or unsafe in research on one cultural group by another?
• How can researchers maintain integrity in their work?
• What is the role of mentors and gatekeepers?
• What counts as knowledge?
• How is "monocultural research" defined? Is there such a thing?
• Where does research go once it is finished? What measures need to be in place for implementation, ownership, follow-up?
• What happens when interest groups conflict?
• How do experienced researchers deal with passion, anxiety, desperation, paradox?

- Jennifer Lawn & Eleanor Rimoldi

Notes on Contributors:

Dr Peter Mataira is of Ngati Porou descent and has research interests in Maori development and entrepreneurship. He teaches Social and Com­munity Work Practice in the School of Social and Cultural Studies, Massey University, Auckland Campus. Peter is a Visiting Fellow to the University of Hawaii, School of Social Work, during 2002.

Pa'u Tafaogalupe Mulitalo-Lauta lectures in the Social Work programme in the School of Social and Cultural Studies, Massey University, Auckland Campus. He has worked in various government departments and was a probation officer in Mangere before becoming a lecturer in So­cial Policy and Social Work. He is the author of Fa'asamoa and Social Work within the New Zealand Context (2000), the first book to offer a view of social work in the context of the Samoan ethnic group in New Zealand.

A/Prof Rajen Prasad lectures in Social Work and Social Policy in the School of Social and Cultural Studies, Massey University, Auckland Campus. He returned to the University after a five-year term as New Zealand's Races Relations Conciliator and Human Rights Com­missioner. His professional life centers on children and families and education for the social services.

Prof Paul Spoonley is Regional Director (Auckland) for the Col­lege of Humanities and Social Sciences and a member of the School of Social and Cultural Studies. He began research with the Niuean commu­nity in the 1970s and has since been funded to work with Maori (Here­taunga) communities and Pacific peoples, alongside work on the extreme right in New Zealand.

Wong Liu Shueng is Team Leader for the Education Department at the Race Relations Office in Auckland.

Prof Marilyn Waring is internationally known for her work in political economy, and development assistance and human rights. Her book Counting for Nothing is an international best seller, and the basis of the Canadian documentary Who's Counting. She has taught at Harvard and Rutgers Universities, and delivered a number of major Memorial lectures in North America.