Masters Theses

Permanent link for this collection

https://hdl.handle.net/10292/5
The Masters Theses collection contains digital copies of AUT University masters theses deposited with the Library since 2002 and made available open access. From 2007 onwards, all theses for masters degrees awarded are required to be deposited in Tuwhera Open Theses & Dissertations unless subject to an embargo.

For theses submitted prior to 2007, open access was not mandatory, so only those theses for which the author has given consent are available in Tuwhera Open Theses & Dissertations. Where consent for open access has not been provided, the thesis is usually recorded in the AUT Library catalogue where the full text, if available, may be accessed with an AUT password. Other people should request an Interlibrary Loan through their library.

Browse

Recent Submissions

Now showing 1 - 5 of 3136
  • Item
    RE: Indigenise, Vitalise, Generate, Vegetate, Juvenate
    (Auckland University of Technology, 2024) Govender, Javani
    This thesis asks how healthcare and healthcare built environments might be re-indigenised to better support Māori health and wellbeing. Particularly the research explores how a process of reindigenisation might inform the design of a new infusion and wellbeing clinic. With a future-focus, the study also asks how re-indigenised healthcare spaces could contribute positively to urban futures and environments more broadly. The study looks at long-standing Indigenous beliefs on health and wellness and investigates the relationship between Indigenous knowledge and architectural design for healthcare. Indigenous health perspectives, profoundly founded in their relationship with the environment, shape spatial notions, underlining the significant link between Indigenous knowledge systems and spatial thinking. This research closely discusses Māori holistic health approaches and the disparities in healthcare and highlights deep health imbalances between Māori and non-Māori populations and the need for holistic Indigenous health approaches. The thesis focuses on re-indigenising healthcare at the Greenlane Clinical Service Centre in central Tāmaki-makau-rau, proposing an infusion/wellbeing centre as a proof-of-concept. The study addresses how this approach can connect Indigenous knowledge systems with urban development by incorporating sustainist design principles, which were introduced by academics Michiel Schwarz and Diana Krabbendam (2013) as principles that connect social and ecological sustainability, that strategise sustainable innovation and social design to improve Māori health services and well-being while celebrating cultural significance. This study highlights architecture’s transformative ability in healthcare, emphasising its role in re-indigenising the sector, addressing current imbalances, and supporting holistic well-being through culturally sensitive design. Furthermore, the thesis broadens its focus to include a revitalised healthcare industry’s broader urban well-being consequences.
  • Item
    ‘The Tiaki Project’, a Proof of Concept Interactive Archiving Experience for the Purpose of Preservation and Sharing of Personal and Community Narratives Based on Cultural Identity and Local Histories
    (Auckland University of Technology, 2023) Pressnell, Jay
    As a child of the 1970s and 80s Britain, growing up with an evocative soundtrack of iconic music, comedy, TV, film, and historic storytelling of wartime suffering and resilience, was certainly common for most children. What that upbringing did do for me personally was to provide me with a sensory appreciation of everything around me, from paintings on the wall, to wallpaper fabric, to the texture of carpet, nostalgic objects, my great aunt’s perfume and the sound of doors opening and closing, each contributing to how I navigated through my childhood and subsequently went on to shape my adulthood and my creative process. To my eternal regret, I never recorded the voices and well versed family narratives that came from my grandparents or the wider elder members of the family. The preservation and archiving of my family histories exist within the playlist in my head, whilst the inner anxiety of maintaining these narratives for future generations weighs heavily on me. The Tiaki Project , the focus for this practical research-based study, will attempt to explore and investigate, via proof of concept design outcomes and material experimentation, the potential for an interactive audio-visual experience for sharing/archiving historical cultural and community narratives. The core intention of The Tiaki Project is centred around the documentation of history via the personal narratives and origin stories from the heart of the Pukekohe/Franklin community to the south of Auckland, Aotearoa, New Zealand. Questions which focus on ‘What defines a community and what contributes to a community identity?’ are those which will be explored and reflected upon as part of both the contextual study, case studies and research, as well as through the realisation of proof-of-concept outcomes and material experimentation. The Tiaki Project has been a culmination of reflections from previous personal historical documentary artworks which have been steeped in archiving community narratives for the purpose of preservation and celebration. The artwork below (Fig 1) is an engraving of the classic Flox Damask Velvet Wallpaper which adorned many walls within my grandparents’ house in South London. The mere sight, let alone the tactile response, evokes a myriad of memories, voices, stories and experiences, whilst the piece of timber came from a 115-year-old tree which fell at my house in Onewhero, New Zealand in 2013. These two material artefacts have been grafted together to represent the fusion of significant layers of time. The Tiaki Project’s heart and motivation will inevitably return to this work to reconnect me, to re-establish the reasons for human connections and generational narrative archiving which has existed consistently within my work.
  • Item
    Self-help in the Manosphere: A Case Study of the Male Self-Improvement Podcast, Good Bro Bad Bro
    (Auckland University of Technology, 2023) Khurana, Sehej
    The Manosphere is a heterogeneous collection of male antifeminist and misogynistic communities, across online sites and platforms. Its communities focus, variously, on men’s legal and discursive rights, navigation of the “sexual marketplace”, and a perceived estrangement from women and society. These perspectives are loosely unified by an adherence to the Red Pill philosophy, which alleges that men can be “awakened” to the “truth” of their subordination by women. Certain Manosphere communities endorse self-improvement as a means for assisting individual men to advance their status and success in the sexual marketplace. In this milieu, the podcast Good Bro Bad Bro (GBBB) is a niche, male self-improvement podcast which uses the Red Pill analogy. It claims to help men to improve themselves, without hating women. This thesis considers the masculinist and neoliberal discourses of GBBB, in relation to the Manosphere and broader self-help genre. It employs critical feminist discourse analysis and keyword analysis to analyse seven episodes of GBBB. The patterns of language identified are set against the context of hegemonic patriarchy, neoliberalism, and the Manosphere. To inform this analysis, the thesis historically situates the Manosphere against the twentieth century’s women’s movement. From here, the de-radicalisation of the women’s movement, antifeminist backlash, the spread of a therapeutic climate and the emergence of neoliberal self-help in Western societies are considered. In relation to GBBB, this research finds that the podcast and its host, Jack Denmo, reproduce a neoliberal doxa which overlaps with masculinist biological essentialism and sexism. In all, this objectifies, commodifies, and fetishises humans and heterosexual relationships, such that individuals are positioned as isolated, competitive units in a sexual marketplace driven by economic transactions and biological whims. These findings affirm that neoliberalism and masculinism are intertwined within male self-help discourses.
  • Item
    The Mother Hood
    (Auckland University of Technology, 2023) De Carvalho, Vanessa
    There are two elements to this Master of Creative Writing thesis. The first is the creative aspect titled The Mother Hood, and the second is the exegesis that accompanies it, titled “Truths of the Mother Hood”. The Mother Hood is a literary fiction novel set in an upper-middle-class Tauranga suburb in modern-day Aotearoa. It follows three friends on different parts of their motherhood journey. We meet Violet at the end of her pregnancy and into the first year of motherhood during which she gets diagnosed with postnatal depression. Lena is a stay-at-home mother of one who longs for more children. Saffi tries to balance work, family, and her relationship all while feeling that the distance between her and her husband Mitch can no longer be bridged. It follows the three women as they experience the banality of motherhood in the day-to-day and try to overcome the additional emotional challenges of their lives. “Truths of the Mother Hood” is the theoretical component of my work. I cover why I felt the need to write The Mother Hood after being unable to find depictions of modern-day motherhood I could relate to in literary fiction. I share the research that has gone into covering topics such as pregnancy, childbirth, postnatal depression, infertility, miscarriage, balance, and matrescence. It also explains why I have chosen to include Covid-19 in the novel without making it a central focus of the plot.
  • Item
    The Perceptions of Non-te Reo Māori Speakers on Language Use in English-Speaking News Media
    (Auckland University of Technology, 2024) Whitley, Celia
    This research captures the attitudes and perceptions of non-te reo Māori speakers on the usage of te reo Māori in mainstream English-speaking news media in New Zealand. The mixed-methods study uses a survey for the quantitative data collection and eight semi-structured interviews for the qualitative data collection. Data is analysed via statistical visualisation and thematic analysis. Results reflect the power mainstream English-speaking news media has by including te reo Māori in their reporting. Although the research project found contradictory perceptions, it was discovered that the inclusion of te reo Māori alleviated resistance and reduced feelings of exclusion. In addition, the usage of te reo Māori in mainstream English-speaking news media can be seen as a language learning tool.
Theses are protected by the Copyright Act 1994 (New Zealand). The thesis may be consulted by you, provided you comply with the provisions of the Act and the following conditions of use:
  • Any use you make of these documents or images must be for research or private study purposes only, and you may not make them available to any other person.
  • Authors control the copyright of their thesis. You will recognise the author’s right to be identified as the author of the thesis, and due acknowledgement will be made to the author where appropriate.
  • You will obtain the author’s permission before publishing any material from the thesis.