Working with boys and men for a change : lessons from Fiji : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Philosophy in Developmental Studies at Massey University, Palmerston North, New Zealand

Male involvement in sexual and reproductive health and anti-violence interventions are two of the more common entry points in working with men to achieve gender equality. The most promising interventions are those that challenge gender norms, questioning men's views of themselves and stimulating their interest about gender equality in different ways. Although most interventions inevitably alter gender norms in an effort to change the behaviour of project recipients, if not executed in a gender-sensitive fashion, these interventions may exacerbate rather than alleviate existing inequalities. One important issue therefore is when, and to what extent, programming involving men should compromise on feminist goals. The Men as Partners pilot programme and Women's Crisis Centre in Fiji worked with similar groups of men in two distinct ways. The former adopted a locally and culturally appropriate style of addressing men about gender issues and sexual and reproductive health, and the latter took a more radical, feminist, 'rights' stance in workshops with men regarding violence. Through consultation with project participants, family members, project staff, and affiliated NGOs, the research raises questions and discusses the implications for on-going work with men in the field of gender and development. It draws some conclusions about the extent to which each intervention contributed to the transformation of attitudes among men towards equality, and emphasises the need for new 'men in development' strategies to be unapologetically feminist in their focus

A discrete analogue for Minkowski's second theorem on successive minima

The main result of this paper is an inequality relating the lattice point enumerator of a 3-dimensional, 0-symmetric convex body and its successive minima. This is an example of generalization of Minkowski's theorems on successive minima, where the volume is replaced by the discrete analogue, the lattice point enumerator. This problem is still open in higher dimensions, however, we introduce a stronger conjecture that shows a possibility of proof by induction on the dimension.Comment: 19 page

A note on Gabor frames in finite dimensions

The purpose of this note is to present a proof of the existence of Gabor frames in general linear position in all finite dimensions. The tools developed in this note are also helpful towards an explicit construction of such a frame, which is carried out in the last section. This result has applications in signal recovery through erasure channels, operator identification, and time-frequency analysis.Comment: 10 page

Greenhouse gas emissions in New Zealand: a preliminary consumption-based analysis

Abstract: New Zealand’s per capita greenhouse gas emissions are usually calculated by taking total emissions as reported under the Kyoto Protocol or the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and simply dividing by population. However this focuses on emissions associated with production within New Zealand. From the point of view of individuals, these are not the emissions they control, and hence can mitigate. Individuals can calculate their “carbon footprint” but tools to do this typically focus on a few categories of emissions (mostly electricity, direct fuel use and waste) and emissions footprints are not available for a wide range of households so cannot be used for comparative analysis. This paper explores how the carbon emissions related to the consumption categories of households in New Zealand vary with household characteristics. We use product consumption data from the 2007 Household Economic Survey. Consumption within each category is linked to a carbon intensity multiplier (tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent per dollar of consumption) which is derived from: the official 2007 input–output table of 106 industries produced by Statistics New Zealand; energy data on carbon dioxide per petajoule of fuel in each industry from the Energy Data File; and the Energy Greenhouse Gas Emissions Report both provided by the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment. Previous literature has used similar methods to calculate the incidence of a carbon tax (e.g. Creedy and Sleeman [2006]). This paper uses these methods in order to study which sectors of household expenditure offer the greatest opportunities for mitigation and how these opportunities vary with household characteristics such as income decile, region and household composition

Spark deficient Gabor frames

The theory of Gabor frames of functions defined on finite abelian groups was initially developed in order to better understand the properties of Gabor frames of functions defined over the reals. However, during the last twenty years the topic has acquired an interest of its own. One of the fundamental questions asked in this finite setting is the existence of full spark Gabor frames. The author proved the existence, as well as constructed such frames, when the underlying group is finite cyclic. In this paper, we resolve the non-cyclic case; in particular, we show that there can be no full spark Gabor frames of windows defined on finite abelian non-cyclic groups. We also prove that all eigenvectors of certain unitary matrices in the Clifford group in odd dimensions generate spark deficient Gabor frames. Finally, similarities between the uncertainty principles concerning the finite dimensional Fourier transform and the short-time Fourier transform are discussed.Comment: 16 pages. Incorporated referee's remarks. To appear in the Pacific Journal of Mathematic

La suerte del fracaso. Lo fallido en la práctica artística contemporánea

El análisis que se presenta a continuación parte de la viabilidad de la elección de lo fallido —fracaso—como posibilidad realizativa de una expresión exitosa en el campo de la práctica contemporánea de las artes visuales. Con dicha finalidad, la de estudiar la praxis de esta ejecución creativa, se expondrán tres enfoques —la obra inacabada, la obra imposible y la comunicación fallida— como ejes principales sobres los que estas prácticas artísticas se desarrollan, siendo su modus operandi posible únicamente a través de la experiencia del espectador(lector) implícito.The analysis presented below works on the feasibility of choosing failure as a performative possibility of a successful expression within the field of contemporary practices in visual arts. To this purpose, that of studying the praxis in this creative execution, three approaches will be exposed —the unfinished work, the impossible work,and the failed communication— as principal centralconcepts on which theses artistic practices are developed, being their modus operandi only possible through the experience of empirical spectator (reader).

"No es una crisis, es que ya no te quiero". Humor y protesta en el movimiento 15M

Este artículo explora la relación entre humor y protesta a través del estudio de la utilización estratégica del humor en el movimiento 15M en Madrid en 2011. El análisis de diversas plataformas (carteles, performances, documentos internos y comunicación en internet) sirve para evaluar el potencial subversivo del humor en relación con la comunicación de reivindicaciones, la organización interna del movimiento, el reclutamiento de activistas y la construcción de identidad colectiva. A nivel teórico, el artículo subraya las ventajas de combinar un enfoque expresivo con otro que entienda el humor como una acción instrumental de los participantes. Los resultados muestran cómo los activistas fueron en buena medida conscientes de una serie de beneficios asociados a la utilización del humor que iban más allá de la propia acción de divertirse y, en consecuencia, organizaron diversas iniciativas con el objetivo de alcanzar esos beneficios

Mecanismos de burla e ironía crítica en la construcción de la comicidad de la comedia áurea

Entre los muchos derroteros críticos de la comedia española, los relacionados con la comicidad y la risa no han alcanzado tal vez la frecuentación que se le ha asignado a aquellos otros que se refieren al drama o, para decirlo de modo más pertinente, al teatro serio en el que se ponen en juego conflictos humanos, políticos, sociales o personales. Un cierto aire de supuesta superficialidad lúdica acompaña siempre a ese inmenso número de comedias cómicas surgidas de la pluma de los más destacados ingenios teatrales del Siglo de Oro que, sin duda, no las hubieran escrito de no haber contado con un público que concurría al corral de comedias deseoso de divertirse y de entretenerse riendo