Just being and being bad: Female friendship as a refuge in neoliberal times

2019 ◽  
Vol 30 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-21 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maree Martinussen ◽  
Margaret Wetherell ◽  
Virginia Braun
Keyword(s):  
New Zealand ◽  
Everyday Life ◽  
Life Strategies ◽  
Female Friendship ◽  
Aotearoa New Zealand ◽  
Counter Narratives ◽  
Close Friendships ◽  
A Site

Those investigating neoliberal and postfeminist subjectivities have argued that continuous self-improvement and self-surveillance have become everyday life strategies for many women. It has been suggested that these strategies have also re-organised women’s friendships, so that this is now a significant field of practice for women to support each other in the anxiety provoking work of self-perfection. Using talk-data from a sample of women in Aotearoa New Zealand we explore these claims, and report on how our sample of women describe their friendships, not so much as a site for developing and perfecting the neoliberal self, but as a place of reprieve from conventions of relentless productivity – a site of ease, escape and refuge. We are not suggesting that accounts of postfeminist, neoliberal subjectivities are inaccurate or that these modes of self-making are not relevant to our participants, but that the discursive environment of women’s close friendships is plural, combining neoliberal emphases with potentially subversive counter-narratives.

scholarly journals Asexuals negotiate the ‘onslaught of the heteronormative’

Sexualities ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 136346072199338
Author(s):  
Tiina Vares
Keyword(s):  
New Zealand ◽  
Everyday Life ◽  
Cultural Context ◽  
Emotional Responses ◽  
Emotional Impact ◽  
Individual Interviews ◽  
The Past ◽  
Aotearoa New Zealand ◽  
The Everyday ◽  
Research Gap

Although theorizing and research about asexuality have increased in the past decade, there has been minimal attention given to the emotional impact that living in a hetero- and amato-normative cultural context has on those who identify as asexual. In this paper, I address this research gap through an exploration of the ‘work that emotions do’ (Sara Ahmed) in the everyday lives of asexuals. The study is based on 15 individual interviews with self-identified asexuals living in Aotearoa New Zealand. One participant in the study used the phrase, ‘the onslaught of the heteronormative’ to describe how he experienced living as an aromantic identified asexual in a hetero- and amato-normative society. In this paper I consider what it means and feels like to experience aspects of everyday life as an ‘onslaught’. In particular, I look at some participants’ talk about experiencing sadness, loss, anger and/or shame as responses to/effects of hetero- and amato-normativity. However, I suggest that these are not only ‘negative’ emotional responses but that they might also be productive in terms of rethinking and disrupting hetero- and amato-normativity.

Situated literacy : a study of family literacy in Aotearoa/New Zealand

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Juliet Suzanne Smith
Keyword(s):  
New Zealand ◽  
Social Context ◽  
Generational Differences ◽  
Family Literacy ◽  
The Other ◽  
Literacy Experiences ◽  
Aotearoa New Zealand ◽  
The Family ◽  
Situated Literacy ◽  
A Site

<p>This study investigated the family as a site for literacy. The theoretical approach is that all literacy is situated in a social context. Eleven parents were interviewed about literacy use and practices both in their present families. The parents were from India, Sri Lanka, Britain and Aotearoa/ New Zealand. The study explored generational differences as well as aspects of diversity among the families. While there were similarities in the uses of literacy across the generations, diversity was evident in the differences in purpose between the Pakeha families and the others. For the Paheka the purpose of reading was for pleasure while the other parents stressed the importance of reading for moral messages and guides to behaviour. Parents spoke more often about reading than about writing, they recalled favourite books, especially those by Enid Blyton, and reported stories they told their own children. It is suggested that teachers might explore their own literacy experiences to better understand the issues of both literacy and diversity.</p>

Situated literacy : a study of family literacy in Aotearoa/New Zealand

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Juliet Suzanne Smith
Keyword(s):  
New Zealand ◽  
Social Context ◽  
Generational Differences ◽  
Family Literacy ◽  
The Other ◽  
Literacy Experiences ◽  
Aotearoa New Zealand ◽  
The Family ◽  
Situated Literacy ◽  
A Site

<p>This study investigated the family as a site for literacy. The theoretical approach is that all literacy is situated in a social context. Eleven parents were interviewed about literacy use and practices both in their present families. The parents were from India, Sri Lanka, Britain and Aotearoa/ New Zealand. The study explored generational differences as well as aspects of diversity among the families. While there were similarities in the uses of literacy across the generations, diversity was evident in the differences in purpose between the Pakeha families and the others. For the Paheka the purpose of reading was for pleasure while the other parents stressed the importance of reading for moral messages and guides to behaviour. Parents spoke more often about reading than about writing, they recalled favourite books, especially those by Enid Blyton, and reported stories they told their own children. It is suggested that teachers might explore their own literacy experiences to better understand the issues of both literacy and diversity.</p>

Imagining an emotional nation: the print media and Anzac Day commemorations in Aotearoa New Zealand

2016 ◽  
Vol 39 (1) ◽  
pp. 94-110 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alex McConville ◽  
Tim McCreanor ◽  
Margaret Wetherell ◽  
Helen Moewaka Barnes
Keyword(s):  
New Zealand ◽  
Cultural Competence ◽  
Communities Of Practice ◽  
Print Media ◽  
Cultural Hegemony ◽  
Imagined Community ◽  
Diverse Range ◽  
Aotearoa New Zealand ◽  
National Life ◽  
A Site

This article explores affect, discourse and emotion in national life. Drawing on recent thinking on discourse and affect, alongside previous work on nation and communities of practice, we focus on the print media’s use of Anzac Day in Aotearoa New Zealand, as a site through which settler identity and cultural hegemony are reproduced. One hegemonic interpretive repertoire is observed throughout, that Anzac Day is a sacred day of respectful remembrance. Within this frame, a series of associated affective-discursive positions are deployed covering issues that range from inclusion and exclusion, to conformity and dissent. We argue that this repertoire and its associated positions constitute citizens engaging with the day as a homogeneous group of national subjects, bound together as a particular kind of affected community. This imagined community and the affective practices attributed to it, however, largely ignore the bicultural makeup of Aotearoa New Zealand, narrowing down the diverse range of potential emotional positions to a just a few. Popular journalism fails readers and limits debate though its thin portrayals of community, legitimate affect and engaged citizenship. National life is impoverished when print media lack the cultural competence necessary to effectively engage in broader debates and political discourse.

Incredible years for whom? Governing early years parenting as a site of colonisation in Aotearoa New Zealand

2019 ◽  
pp. 146394911987376
Author(s):  
Shil Bae
Keyword(s):  
New Zealand ◽  
Early Years ◽  
Incredible Years ◽  
Dominant Culture ◽  
Parenting Programme ◽  
Post Colonial ◽  
Aotearoa New Zealand ◽  
A Site ◽  
Structural Theories ◽  
The Incredible Years

This article conducts a critical analysis of the Incredible Years parenting programme through the lens of post-colonial and post-structural theories. Drawing from Foucault’s concept of ‘governmentality’ and ‘discursive normalisation’, the author questions the norms and definitions constructed by the implementation of Incredible Years in New Zealand, and attempts to disrupt taken-for-granted values and assumptions in modern parenting. The analysis of this study shows that the discourses in Incredible Years (re)produce colonising values and assumptions, reinforcing the privileged knowledge of the West in parenting. The author points out how this approach to parenting constructs those who do not fit into the norm as ‘the Other’ and normalises/reinforces conformity to the dominant culture in this context.

Situated literacy : a study of family literacy in Aotearoa/New Zealand

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Juliet Suzanne Smith
Keyword(s):  
New Zealand ◽  
Social Context ◽  
Generational Differences ◽  
Family Literacy ◽  
The Other ◽  
Literacy Experiences ◽  
Aotearoa New Zealand ◽  
The Family ◽  
Situated Literacy ◽  
A Site

<p>This study investigated the family as a site for literacy. The theoretical approach is that all literacy is situated in a social context. Eleven parents were interviewed about literacy use and practices both in their families of origin and in their present families. The parents were from India, Sri Lanka, Tonga, Britain and Aotearoa/New Zealand. The study explored generational differences as well as aspects of diversity among the families. While there were similarities in the uses of literacy across the generations, diversity was evident in the differences in purpose between the Pakeha families and the others. For the Pakeha the purpose of reading was for pleasure while the other parents stressed the importance of reading for moral messages and guides to behaviour. Parents spoke more often about reading than about writing, they recalled favourite books, especially those by Enid Blyton, and reported stories they told their own children. It is suggested that teachers might explore their own literacy experiences to better understand the issues of both literacy and diversity.</p>

scholarly journals A life lived on the corner

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Bronwyn Jewell McGovern
Keyword(s):  
New Zealand ◽  
Everyday Life ◽  
Social Action ◽  
Participant Observation ◽  
Medical Intervention ◽  
Control Mechanisms ◽  
Street Life ◽  
Aotearoa New Zealand ◽  
Street People ◽  
Street Corner

<p>This thesis explores the everyday life of Brother, a well-known street dweller and local identity, who lives everyday life on a busy street corner in Wellington, Aotearoa New Zealand. Brother’s way of doing ‘being ordinary’ attracts strong public curiosity, media interest, and monitoring by informal and formal social control mechanisms, including medical intervention. This research provides a comprehensive account of what can happen to those at the margins who dare, or are impelled, to do things differently. My research is inspired by the longstanding tradition of street corner sociology, and grounded within the sociology of everyday life orientation. My street ethnography involved participant observation over a three-and-a-half year period. In that time, I observed Brother and other street people, capturing the depth and nuanced complexities of a life lived in the open. Central to this thesis is an examination of the ways in which wider social structures and institutions bear upon the local micro-setting, in particular how classification processes act to ‘make, remake, and unmake’ people. Three core concepts of space, body, and social interaction are explored to examine, through the situatedness of everyday talk and social action, how social meanings are locally produced and understood. I argue that by developing spatial, bodily, and interactional methods, Brother has established organisational and social capacities, and lines of conduct, that are firmly founded in autonomous actions. Through his rejection of ascribed ‘homeless’ membership and his clear embracement of a street lifestyle, Brother’s street life is shown to subvert and trouble normative understandings, while engendering and maintaining a lived sense of home in the city he calls his whare [house]. My research contributes an Aotearoa New Zealand perspective to the international sociological street corner landscape, and provides a Wellington perspective to the emerging domestic literature on street life. More broadly, my study aims to stimulate critical sociological reflection regarding different modes of being and belonging in the world and how we, as a society, respond to this.</p>

scholarly journals A Socialist Compass for Aotearoa

2020 ◽  
Vol 8 ◽  
pp. 73
Author(s):  
Danielle Webb
Keyword(s):  
New Zealand ◽  
Social Power ◽  
State Power ◽  
Socialist Economy ◽  
Economic Power ◽  
Conceptual Tool ◽  
Aotearoa New Zealand ◽  
Emancipatory Politics ◽  
A Site ◽  
Do So

In this article, I argue that both tino rangatiratanga and socialism lie at the heart of emancipatory politics in Aotearoa New Zealand. For Māori, the economy has always been a dynamic site of interaction with the state and corporate bodies, and today the Māori economy is celebrated by some as a space where tino rangatiratanga can be realised. For the most part, though, the capitalist economy has been a site of exploitation for Māori. Given the inextricable relations between capitalism and colonialism, I present the case for Māori socialism as an emancipatory response to both. To do so, I employ Erik Olin Wright’s socialist compass, a conceptual tool that points to a variety of economic pathways towards socialism. But there is a major problem with Wright’s compass: it only has three points (state power, economic power, and social power). I extend Wright’s vision for socialism by completing the compass, adding to it a much needed fourth point: tino rangatiratanga. The resulting ‘Aotearoa socialist compass’ can be used to orient us towards Māori socialism—a socialist economy in which tino rangatiratanga is realised.  

scholarly journals Creating Fictitious Family Memories: The Closed Stranger Adoption of Māori Children into White Families

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maria Haenga-Collins
Keyword(s):  
New Zealand ◽  
Research Approach ◽  
White Families ◽  
Aotearoa New Zealand ◽  
Counter Narratives ◽  
Family Memories

Between 1955 and 1985 approximately 45,000 closed stranger adoptions took place in Aotearoa New Zealand. Many of these adoptions involved children of Māori ancestry, who were placed into white families, where links to their whakapapa were severed and a space for fictitious narratives (including memories) was created. This article reveals some adoption fictions experienced in the lives of six Māori people who were adopted into Pākehā families. Using a Māori-centred research approach, it found that there were common fictions that Māori adopted people navigated, through counter-narratives and narratives of repair, in their quest to create their own identity.

Friends tell it like it is: Therapy culture, postfeminism and friendships between women

2021 ◽  
pp. 136754942110575
Author(s):  
Maree Martinussen ◽  
Margaret Wetherell
Keyword(s):  
New Zealand ◽  
Everyday Life ◽  
Identity Work ◽  
National Identities ◽  
Cultural Resources ◽  
Qualitative Investigation ◽  
Aotearoa New Zealand ◽  
Creative Identity ◽  
Practice Approach ◽  
Using Data

Feminist cultural studies researchers have produced a rich body of work showing how postfeminism and therapy cultures pervade a range of media. However, receiving less attention are questions of exactly how the neoliberal technologies of self implicated in these two cultural persuasions ‘land’, and are practised in everyday life. In this article, we forward an identity practice approach to understand the interrelated cultures of therapy and postfeminism using data from a qualitative investigation of women’s friendships in Aotearoa New Zealand. We are interested in how the cultural resources concerning postfeminism and the ‘psy complex’ are used flexibly within friendship interactions in concert with other identities, such as national identities and caring identities. Overall, aligning with previous feminist analyses of media artefacts, we find that as postfeminist and therapeutic subjectivity-making entwine with the moral orders of women’s friendships, women carry out their self-surveillance and self-transformation work collaboratively. Yet, remaining attentive to how women tailor cultural resources in their creative identity work leads us to a more hopeful reading. We suggest that the confidence gained by women through their therapised friendships should also be acknowledged for its nourishing qualities.

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