Diasporic films and the migrant experience in New Zealand: A case study in social imagination

Drawing upon interviews and focus groups with Asian migrants, this article interrogates responses to ‘diasporic’ films that seek to represent multicultural experiences in contemporary New Zealand. We argue that these responses provide an effective demonstration of the operation of the ‘social imagination’, a discursive process that articulates the fundamental linkage between symbolic representation, community formation and social action. As our respondents narrated the personal meanings that they construct around ethnically specific media, they were compelled to describe known and hypothetical others, to elucidate symbolic and moral codes, and to reveal social empathies and anxieties. In this study, we found that discussions around migrant stories revealed a series of deeply personalised notions of self and place that were always situated in juxtaposition with externalised projections of community formation and the ‘mainstream’ culture. This dynamic reflects what can be conceptualised as the central preoccupations of a ‘diasporic social imagination’. These responses, therefore, constitute a case study of social imagination at work in a multicultural context, underlining the utility of narrative media in providing a public forum for discussing cultural diversity

The Asian Diaspora in New Zealand Film: Conceptualising Asian New Zealand Cinema

New Zealand is officially described, and effectively operated, as a bicultural nation guided by the Treaty of Waitangi. Nonetheless, this society of four and a half million people also appears markedly multicultural and multi-ethnic at the beginning of the twenty-first century. The shifting demographics of New Zealand and its ethnically diverse composition have, in the last decade, rekindled debates about the role of creative and cultural production in the representation and construction of new narratives for the nation. New Zealand scholars have recognised the potential of film (screen media) for creating ‘the imagined community’ by referring to the scarce representations of ethnic communities in New Zealand, and also to the stereotyped images in other media forms that reinforce the enduring discourses of exclusion in representing the nation. Nevertheless, there have been healthy signs in recent years of media productions being made by New Zealanders of ethnic descent that attempt to represent a wider range of social and cultural experiences amongst the contemporary population. As more people from different backgrounds commit to a future in New Zealand, some feel the need to reflect publically on their experience of migration and diaspora. The desire to shape their related experiences and perspectives into various forms of media and visual culture has fed some notable works in contemporary New Zealand. Consequently, emerging Asian diasporic talents, and the voices of filmmakers who have presented alternative world views, identities and cultures in the dominantly Europeanised New Zealand cultural and social arenas, have become evident. This research project is based on the premise that there has been an increasing visibility of filmmakers with a migratory background in New Zealand film and cinema, and also a growing sense of cultural diversity in New Zealand society. The thesis speaks of an ‘Asian New Zealand’ arena which is a relatively recent possibility, and fundamentally engages with exploring and conceptualising a group of diasporic films and filmmakers as aspects of ‘Asian New Zealand cinema’, which in a broader sense reflects manifold social realities within contemporary New Zealand as whole. This is the first study of (Asian) diasporic films in New Zealand and, therefore, creates a foundation for investigation of this type of film and filmmaking within New Zealand cinema scholarship. By foregrounding an emerging group of films and filmmakers that have delineated important aesthetic, cultural, social, gendered and political complexities in the New Zealand social and cinematic imaginary over the last decade, the thesis advances New Zealand film scholarship by highlighting the roles diasporic films can play, as well as perspectives they can provide in responding to the increasing reality of cultural diversity in New Zealand at a social level, particularly through the lens of Diaspora Studies. This research utilises theories and concepts of diaspora, which over the last two decades have served many functions within film and cinema scholarship; in particular, they have spoken to the ways in which films made and written by directors and writers with a migratory background can be understood, interpreted and studied. My research innovates in the area of diasporic film studies specifically by paying attention to the diasporic film viewer or audience. Previous diasporic cinema studies have largely assigned a primary role to the diasporic author and the diasporic text as a series of wide-ranging relationships in which the filmmaker’s migratory background and deterritorialised locations affect various aspects of the cinematic productions and the text. Given my interest in foregrounding the concept of Asian New Zealand film and its power to offer a platform for multilayered dialogues between diasporic subjects and the New Zealand host society, I was drawn to exploring what kinds of relationships exist between the diasporic audience/viewer and the diasporic film. In this way, my project enriches these conversations by bringing the notion of diasporic audiences as significant meaning-making bodies to diasporic cinema studies. This thesis follows the ‘PhD with Publication’ scheme and therefore needs to be read and understood in this manner. It presents a collection of five scholarly articles and one book chapter which are interconnected and linked to the research’s central goal: conceptualising Asian New Zealand cinema

Tutors' Voice: Future Directions?

Little did I guess when I started tutoring at the University of Waikato in 2012 and later when I was given the role of Tutor Support person at TDU last July, that there was no institutionally required formal training for those who choose to work as tutors, sessional assistants, lab demonstrators or similar titles. I was coming from a strong teaching and research background as I previously held the position of senior lecturer at several international and public universities overseas, which meant I had the skills, knowledge and experience required to tutor when I was given a tutoring role. Later, in the course of speaking to tutors and listening to their voices across several meetings and workshops in the past months as part of my teaching developer position at TDU, I came to realise that tutors vary immensely not only in their perceptions of a ‘tutor’s role’, but also in the level of teaching experience and communication skills they are required to have to take up the job. Their positions also differ in terms of the support provided for them by course conveners and departments across the University. In the past months, I have also explored the tutor-convener relationship and working protocol in terms of support and advice tutors would need and are actually offered, and was not surprised to arrive at a similar degree of variation in what is happening across programmes and faculties at the University of Waikato. What follows is based on my observation in the last few years and also conversations with various individuals across the University in the past months

Use of interactive video for teaching and learning

This paper focuses on the findings of Phases I and II of an institution-wide project on the effective use of interactive video for teaching and learning in a university in New Zealand. Responding to the emerging growth of video in teaching and learning practice and scholarship, and also to the university’s strategic focus on providing blended, flexible learning opportunities, this project explores the ways in which lecturers currently use videos in teaching, their challenges, and their attitudes towards making video as well as students’ perceptions of learning through video. This paper discusses what we conceptualise as effective learning moments and conditions and how these can be created and maximised through the effective production and manipulation of relevant, purposeful interactive videos. The overall project combines both research and impact and develops opportunities for lecturers to enhance their competencies in creating interactive videos

Phenomenological studies of imagination in poetry: an introduction

The broad and dominant discipline of phenomenology has produced many studies of imagination. Phenomenological studies examine imagination as a dimension of language and explore the creative role of imagination in the creation of new meanings in language.This exploration has many implications in poetry where language is used creatively and new meanings emerge from the creative and unexpected use of language by the poet. This paper aims to describe a phenomenological account of imagination in poetry by introducing the concepts that appear most relevant to imagination in poetry within the domain of phenomenological studies. In order to do this, the study focuses on the main tenets of phenomenological studies relevant to imagination in poetry, namely the concepts of ‘metaphor’ and ‘intentionality’. The discussion highlights the level of creativity of imagination in poetry in comparison with the reduction of imagining to perceiving in language. Likewise, the poetic image in poetry is also introduced as an image which is not a resume of the old meanings of perception. Phenomenology of imagination in poetic creation takes us beyond the pervious analyses of the characteristics of imagination as a creative faculty and helps to establish a link between creativity, meaning and imagination

Beyond the Screen: Emerging Cinema and Engaging Audiences. [Book Review]

This article reviews the book “Beyond the Screen: Emerging Cinema and Engaging Audiences”, by Sarah Atkinson

Diasporic films and the migrant experience in New Zealand: a case study in social imagination

Drawing upon interviews and focus groups with Asian migrants, this article interrogates responses to ‘diasporic’ films that seek to represent multicultural experiences in contemporary New Zealand. We argue that these responses provide an effective demonstration of the operation of the ‘social imagination’, a discursive process that articulates the fundamental linkage between symbolic representation, community formation and social action. As our respondents narrated the personal meanings that they construct around ethnically specific media, they were compelled to describe known and hypothetical others, to elucidate symbolic and moral codes, and to reveal social empathies and anxieties. In this study, we found that discussions around migrant stories revealed a series of deeply personalised notions of self and place that were always situated in juxtaposition with externalised projections of community formation and the ‘mainstream’ culture. This dynamic reflects what can be conceptualised as the central preoccupations of a ‘diasporic social imagination’. These responses, therefore, constitute a case study of social imagination at work in a multicultural context, underlining the utility of narrative media in providing a public forum for discussing cultural diversity

Shopping in a narrow field: Cross-media news repertories in New Zealand

This article reports on the New Zealand case study within a larger project investigating cross-media news repertoires within (and across) national audiences. Six key news media repertoires emerged in this case study; heavy news consumers; hybrid browsers; digital browsers; ambivalent networkers; mainstream multiplatformers; and casual and connected). Despite a range of news media outlets available within New Zealand, particularly across digital platforms, participants consistently noted a relatively narrow social, cultural and political discursive field for news content in the country. Within this context, the news repertoires identified within this case study highlighted the high value placed by news consumers on national daily newspapers (print and online), and the continued salience of television and radio news broadcasting for some audience segments. But findings also offered a snapshot of the ways these are being supplemented or replaced, for some audience segments, by digital news outlets (even as these also generated dissatisfaction from many participants)