- Rosemary Du Plessis is a sociologist based at University of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand. In the 1980s and 1... moreRosemary Du Plessis is a sociologist based at University of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand. In the 1980s and 1990s she focused on issues associated with gender, paid and unpaid work, embodiment, family and sexualities. In the early 21st century she researched and published in the field of science and technology studies. Recently she has focused on gender and disasters and worked with others to record women’s experiences of the Christchurch earthquakes 2010-2011 and their impacts.edit
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Abstract: Like many other nation states in Asia and the Pacific, Aotearoa/New Zealand confronts the challenges of increasing cultural diversity and its benefits. This paper argues that Te Tiriti O Waitangi/The Treaty of Waitangi is... more
Abstract: Like many other nation states in Asia and the Pacific, Aotearoa/New Zealand confronts the challenges of increasing cultural diversity and its benefits. This paper argues that Te Tiriti O Waitangi/The Treaty of Waitangi is central to understanding cultural ...
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While the practices of social workers have been extensively researched, qualitative researchers have paid less attention to how child protection work is accomplished through networks that bridge the human and non-human worlds of... more
While the practices of social workers have been extensively researched, qualitative researchers have paid less attention to how child protection work is accomplished through networks that bridge the human and non-human worlds of assessment and intervention work for ‘at risk’ children and families. Drawing on the work of Actor Network theorists, we argue that child protection social work can be tracked as multiple partially connected networks that are organized around children and families, while at the same time incorporating hierarchical occupational group practices. The circulation, prioritization and hierarchical ordering of professional reports, case notes, court reports and assessment documents that organize particular sets of action by social workers has seldom been analysed. This article examines child protection social work as sets of associations between human and non-human actants with significant outcomes for individuals, whanau and families. It draws on detailed interviews with child protection social workers throughout New Zealand who spoke about their experience of particular cases, their interactions with other human service professionals and the documents they accessed, analysed and created as they assessed whether children were ‘at risk’.
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This collection of essays highlights the telling diversity of feminist political analysis as practiced today in Aotearoa/New Zealand. The book has been designed to identify those issues that feminists in this and other contexts are... more
This collection of essays highlights the telling diversity of feminist political analysis as practiced today in Aotearoa/New Zealand. The book has been designed to identify those issues that feminists in this and other contexts are addressing in their research, teaching, writing, and their relationships with other feminists. These papers respond to queries about how and why politics, identity, activism, and community are being reconsidered in the 1990s.
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In May 2000, at the invitation of the Christchurch branch of NZAP, Rosemary Du Plessis contributed a paper exploring the sociological realities of fathering and fatherlessness to a panel discussion entitled 'The Contextual Realitiesof... more
In May 2000, at the invitation of the Christchurch branch of NZAP, Rosemary Du Plessis contributed a paper exploring the sociological realities of fathering and fatherlessness to a panel discussion entitled 'The Contextual Realitiesof Psychotherapy in the New Millennium'. Members of NZAP working from a variety of theoretical foundations were later invited to respond to the implications of this paper for psychotherapists, their clients and the work of psychotherapy. The paper and members' responses to it follow. In the last decade there has been a considerable amount of writing about 'fatherlessness', 'father hunger' and 'fatherhood'. Fathering activists have argued that issues relating to fathering are challenges that individuals, families, communities, political parties, state bureaucrats and those in the helping professions must confront in 'the new millennium'. This paper examines some recent assertions offered in the United States and ...
It is one mark of a good book that it can make you change your mind. For me, Jennifer Germon's Gender: a Genealogy of an Idea resolved some of the questions that had been hovering around my first-year introductory paper on Gender -... more
It is one mark of a good book that it can make you change your mind. For me, Jennifer Germon's Gender: a Genealogy of an Idea resolved some of the questions that had been hovering around my first-year introductory paper on Gender - and made me change it. It asked some hard questions of a famous article which I had held dear for years. And it emphatically returns to the notice of gender scholars some figures many of us have not wanted to address seriously for some time now - most especially, that valorised and vilified alumnus of Victoria University, John Money.
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Maori and Pakeha, lesbian and heterosexual, older and younger, working inside or outside universities, the two dozen contributors to Feminist Voices present here their feminist analyses of Aotearoa/New Zealand. They discuss subjects as... more
Maori and Pakeha, lesbian and heterosexual, older and younger, working inside or outside universities, the two dozen contributors to Feminist Voices present here their feminist analyses of Aotearoa/New Zealand. They discuss subjects as diverse as rugby, spirituality, the politics of work, science, medicine, education, speaking on the marae, racism, Maori theatre, lesbian studies, women and the State, feminist politics, and what is presented to us as history. The result is diverse, lively, and challenging reading for students of women's studies and feminist studies, or simply those seeking to understand further the position of women in Aotearoa/New Zealand in the 1990s.
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In the 21st century there has been a significant expansion in the knowledge available about human genes and their relationship to human health and illness. The completion of the Human Genome Project, developments in the digital processing... more
In the 21st century there has been a significant expansion in the knowledge available about human genes and their relationship to human health and illness. The completion of the Human Genome Project, developments in the digital processing of large bodies of genetic information and the availability of equipment that enables the visualization of cells at the molecular and sub-molecular level have generated escalating interest in the collection and analysis of samples of human and animal tissue. While systematic repositories of biological tissue have been a core resource for scientific work for many years, there is now increased interest in the establishment of tissue collections from which DNA can be derived and the possible genetic analysis of samples collected for other purposes. These repositories of tissue are a vital resource for public good scientific researchers and commercial biotech companies. Increasingly they are referred to as ‘biobanks ’ – resources in which communities a...
This paper uses the concept of ‘ethicality ’ to analyse focus group conversations in New Zealand about biobanking and genetic testing. ‘Ethicality ’ has been used by Arohia Durie, a Māori educationist, to highlight how ethical talk and... more
This paper uses the concept of ‘ethicality ’ to analyse focus group conversations in New Zealand about biobanking and genetic testing. ‘Ethicality ’ has been used by Arohia Durie, a Māori educationist, to highlight how ethical talk and practice is historically and socially positioned, situated within specific life-worlds, embedded within always partial communities, and articulated within individual life narratives. This situated ethicality is identified in the talk of Māori and non-Māori research participants. The authors (a moral philosopher, two sociologists and a kaupapa Māori social researcher) argue that serious consideration of ethicality presents significant challenges to the abstracted character of much expert ethical analysis, while also illustrating connections between ‘ethics talk ’ and expert discourses.
Bill Catton died suddenly on January 5th 2015 in Port Chalmers, New Zealand where he was staying with family who had gathered for a family wedding. Bill is survived by Nancy, his wife of 66 years and his sister, Ruth Willard Catton, both... more
Bill Catton died suddenly on January 5th 2015 in Port Chalmers, New Zealand where he was staying with family who had gathered for a family wedding. Bill is survived by Nancy, his wife of 66 years and his sister, Ruth Willard Catton, both of whom were with him when he died. He is also survived by sons Stephen, Philip, Theodore and Jonathan, and by grandchildren Felicity, William, Walter, Eleanor, Benjamin and Eli, and by great-grandsons Sebastian and Alexander.Bill was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota on January 15, 1926. At seventeen years of age he enlisted in the US Navy and served there from 1943 to 1946. He was wounded in Pacific combat aboard USS Ticonderoga and when recovered, served in the official occupation of Japan. En route home from the war he suffered the crushing of his pelvis by equipment failure aboard ship. His injury would prevent him from ever running so that during his convalescence Bill resolved that his lifetime goal for recreation would be wilderness backpacking...
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AbstractSociology at the University of Canterbury has contributed to the development of this field of social science in Aotearoa New Zealand and internationally, but its vitality and energy has often been sustained by interdisciplinary... more
AbstractSociology at the University of Canterbury has contributed to the development of this field of social science in Aotearoa New Zealand and internationally, but its vitality and energy has often been sustained by interdisciplinary connections and linkages across academia, the state sector, social research consultancies, community organisations and social movements. This article explores these connections through attention to the biographies of some of the staffand graduate students who have participated in this academic programme since 1958. It offers one participant's view of the shifting features of this network of people, social relationships and professional practices.Exercising the sociological imagination - a positioned narrativeI enrolled in the first year of a master's degree in sociology at University of Canterbury in February 1972, one of six students doing course work that year.2 I was taught by Professor Bill Catton3 - the first Professor of Sociology at Can...
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This paper tells stories of the Christchurch earthquakes and the aftermath, involving community action, health, housing, insurance woes, families, children and many other themes. Summary How did this project come to be? Well, without the... more
This paper tells stories of the Christchurch earthquakes and the aftermath, involving community action, health, housing, insurance woes, families, children and many other themes. Summary How did this project come to be? Well, without the earthquakes there would be no project, so we might blame the earth-moving gods. On the 22nd April 2014, the Canterbury Quake Live website noted that there had been 14,083 felt earthquakes since the first ‘big’ one occurred early in the morning of 4 September 2010. Everyone in Christchurch has been affected in some way since that first major quake. At the National Council of Women’s first Christchurch meeting after the devastating 22 February 2011 earthquake, members raised questions about the need to record women’s experiences of the quakes and their aftermath. At the time, the media was full of recovery, demolition and rebuilding stories, but there was not much about looking after ageing parents, getting children to relocated schools across crumbli...
Queer theorizing problematizes all forms of unitary subjectivity (e.g. 'lesbian', 'homosexual', 'heterosexual') and disrupts the binary oppositions that organize thinking about sexuality in Anglo/European/North... more
Queer theorizing problematizes all forms of unitary subjectivity (e.g. 'lesbian', 'homosexual', 'heterosexual') and disrupts the binary oppositions that organize thinking about sexuality in Anglo/European/North American cultures and white settler societies (Petersen, 1998). This often eclectic body of poststructuralist intellectual work developed in the United States against the background of a series of lively confrontational political actions (e.g. grassroots action by ACT UP and Queer Nation) and academic conferences at which philosophers, literary theorists and historians reflected on gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender issues (Butler, 1990, 1993; de Lauretis, 1991; Fuss, 1991; Sedgwick, 1990; Warner, 1991, 1993). This intellectual and political work was directed at constructing 'queer' as 'permanent rebellion' and transgression (Seidman, 1996). It challenged conventional gay and lesbian politics, problematized sexual and gender categor...
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Maori and Pakeha, lesbian and heterosexual, older and younger, working inside or outside universities, the two dozen contributors to Feminist Voices present here their feminist analyses of Aotearoa/New Zealand. They discuss subjects as... more
Maori and Pakeha, lesbian and heterosexual, older and younger, working inside or outside universities, the two dozen contributors to Feminist Voices present here their feminist analyses of Aotearoa/New Zealand. They discuss subjects as diverse as rugby, spirituality, the politics of work, science, medicine, education, speaking on the marae, racism, Maori theatre, lesbian studies, women and the State, feminist politics, and what is presented to us as history. The result is diverse, lively, and challenging reading for students of women's studies and feminist studies, or simply those seeking to understand further the position of women in Aotearoa/New Zealand in the 1990s.
Purpose While women are increasingly in senior positions in accountancy firms, a century after gaining entry to this once exclusively male field, they are still struggling to achieve career success. The concept of possible selves and a... more
Purpose While women are increasingly in senior positions in accountancy firms, a century after gaining entry to this once exclusively male field, they are still struggling to achieve career success. The concept of possible selves and a model of career crafting are activated in an analysis of how a set of New Zealand professional accountants have pursued their careers. This paper aims to focus on how people actively craft career selves in the context of organisational and gendered constraints, some of which are self-imposed, and therefore, can be modified and revised. Design/methodology/approach Interviews with 36 male and female accounting professionals in New Zealand – 21 working in private firms and 15 in academia identify how careers are shaped by contexts, cultural understandings of gender, organisational structures within which accountants are located and wider environmental factors. Findings Women accountants in this study are both agential and responsive to a range of constra...
The paper explores the development and facilitation of a new initial teacher education (ITE) programme underpinned by critical perspectives. It looks at the past and existing influences that have shaped the ways schooling is understood and... more
The paper explores the development and facilitation of a new initial teacher education (ITE) programme underpinned by critical perspectives. It looks at the past and existing influences that have shaped the ways schooling is understood and operationalised in Aotearoa New Zealand. Through an 11-month ethnographic case study approach, the paper discusses an investigation of how a cohort of teacher educators attempt to highlight and deconstruct inequities underlying contemporary educational practices to student teachers. The purpose is to prepare emergent teachers who will be socially conscious of the purposes of education and to reconceptualise teaching with the learning outcomes of classroom students at the centre of education.
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The world of trade union organisation has been a male dominated world. Men have headed the Federation of Labour and the Council of Trade Unions, and male secretaries have often represented unions with predominantly female members. The... more
The world of trade union organisation has been a male dominated world. Men have headed the Federation of Labour and the Council of Trade Unions, and male secretaries have often represented unions with predominantly female members. The dominance of men was significantly challenged in the 1970s and 1980s by a number of women unionists, especially those representing occupational groups with a large female membership. The predominantly female unions which provided them with an organisational base have not until recently received much attention by researchers. As Janet Sayers has indicated, it is now time that the analysis of these unions "should be a priority in labour relations research" (Sayers, 1993: 219).
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This paper seeks to investigate constraints and opportunities underlying the development of a new initial teacher education (ITE) programme with the goal of reconceptualising what inclusive education might mean in the Aotearoa New Zealand... more
This paper seeks to investigate constraints and opportunities underlying the development of a new initial teacher education (ITE) programme with the goal of reconceptualising what inclusive education might mean in the Aotearoa New Zealand (NZ) education system. The opportunity to develop this new ITE programme emerged from a request of the Ministry of Education [MoE. 2013. Request for Application for Provision of Exemplary Post Graduate Initial Teacher Education (ITE) Programmes. Welington: Author] to ITE providers to develop a Masters’ level programme directed at intervening in the persistent disparity in educational outcomes for students identified as ‘priority learners’. How teaching practitioners are ‘working the space’ in the creation and implementation of a new ITE programme committed to improving the learning outcomes of all students in Aotearoa NZ is of interest to this paper. We draw on critical discourse analysis (CDA) to investigate the ways inclusion is constructed and practised in past and current educational approaches in Aotearoa NZ. We argue that a broader analysis of the shifting nature and complex social, cultural, historical, political and institutional contexts in which students are situated is required in reforms and initiatives that aim to raise the learning outcomes of all students in the education system.
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This paper summarises the development and implementation of the research methodology that was primarily used in Phase One of the Constructive Conversations/ Korero Whakaaetanga project – the first eighteen months of work on the project.... more
This paper summarises the development and implementation of the research methodology that was primarily used in Phase One of the Constructive Conversations/ Korero Whakaaetanga project – the first eighteen months of work on the project. It outlines the methodology piloted in twenty-five focus groups/ contact groups on genetic testing and biobanking that were facilitated in late 2003 and early 2004. This is followed by a discussion of some issues which emerged as this methodology was developed and employed. A description of the characteristics of the groups who participated in this stage of the project is provided. This is followed by a summary of the strategies used in preliminary analysis of the transcripts of these interviews. Proposed plans for the next stages of the contact group process are outlined, followed by a brief discussion of some issues that have arisen during the year that are relevant to the objective of achieving greater public participation in technological decisio...
In the 21st century there has been a significant expansion in the knowledge available about human genes and their relationship to human health and illness. The completion of the Human Genome Project, developments in the digital processing... more
In the 21st century there has been a significant expansion in the knowledge available about human genes and their relationship to human health and illness. The completion of the Human Genome Project, developments in the digital processing of large bodies of genetic information and the availability of equipment that enables the visualization of cells at the molecular and submolecular level have generated escalating interest in the collection and analysis of samples of human and animal tissue. While systematic repositories of biological tissue have been a core resource for scientific work for many years, there is now increased interest in the establishment of tissue collections from which DNA can be derived and the possible genetic analysis of samples collected for other purposes. These repositories of tissue are a vital resource for public good scientific researchers and commercial biotech companies. Increasingly they are referred to as ‘biobanks’ – resources in which communities and...
NINETEEN Narratives, community organisations and pedagogy Rosemary Du Plessis. Jane Higgins and Belinda Mortlock This chapter engages with three categories of narrative: stories about teaching a social research course; students'... more
NINETEEN Narratives, community organisations and pedagogy Rosemary Du Plessis. Jane Higgins and Belinda Mortlock This chapter engages with three categories of narrative: stories about teaching a social research course; students' stories about their practice as ...
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In the last ten years there has been a rapid expansion in the number of genetic tests and increased interest in accessing the information available through these tests. The expansion of access to genetic testing occurs against the... more
In the last ten years there has been a rapid expansion in the number of genetic tests and increased interest in accessing the information available through these tests. The expansion of access to genetic testing occurs against the background of mixed systems for delivering health services, including DNA testing. This paper draws on theory relating to the social shaping of technologies and the concept of technological 'scripts' to offer a critical analysis of recent debate in Aotearoa New Zealand about private provision of genetic testing. An apparent 'turf war' between professionals about who will provide genetic tests obscures attention to a more serious issue--the redefinition of a technology. What is at stake is not just who will do the tests, but what technology is available--either genetic testing as a commodity, or an integrated set of genetic services. While focused on a particular national context, this paper addresses issues relevant to the provision of genetic services in other nation states characterised by a mixture of public and private provision of health services.
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ABSTRACT While the practices of social workers have been extensively researched, qualitative researchers have paid less attention to how child protection work is accomplished through networks that bridge the human and non-human worlds of... more
ABSTRACT While the practices of social workers have been extensively researched, qualitative researchers have paid less attention to how child protection work is accomplished through networks that bridge the human and non-human worlds of assessment and intervention work for ‘at risk’ children and families. Drawing on the work of Actor Network theorists, we argue that child protection social work can be tracked as multiple partially connected networks that are organized around children and families, while at the same time incorporating hierarchical occupational group practices. The circulation, prioritization and hierarchical ordering of professional reports, case notes, court reports and assessment documents that organize particular sets of action by social workers has seldom been analysed. This article examines child protection social work as sets of associations between human and non-human actants with significant outcomes for individuals, whanau and families. It draws on detailed interviews with child protection social workers throughout New Zealand who spoke about their experience of particular cases, their interactions with other human service professionals and the documents they accessed, analysed and created as they assessed whether children were ‘at risk’.
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This paper explores the use of “situated knowledges” as a means of grounding debates about “scientific citizenship” within practical research interventions. We describe the development of a focus group methodology that uses opportunities... more
This paper explores the use of “situated knowledges” as a means of grounding debates about “scientific citizenship” within practical research interventions. We describe the development of a focus group methodology that uses opportunities for storytelling to elicit the situated knowledges of research participants regarding human genetic testing. The application of this methodology is illustrated by attention to the potential construction of what Irwin and Michael have referred to as “ethno-epistemic assemblages.” Methodological discussion is preceded by a critical review of recent public participation and “dialogue” initiatives that aim to develop scientific citizenship and more accountable technology decision-making.
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Du Plessis, R., Hindmarsh, R., Cronin, K. 2010. Engaging across boundaries—Emerging practices in ‘technical democracy’. In R. Hindmarsh et al. (eds.) Special issue: Engaging Publics /Engaging Science in Australia, Japan and New Zealand, East Asian Science, Technology and Society 14(4): 475-482. more