Massey Research Online - Browsing by Author "Coombes, Leigh"

Browsing by Author "Coombes, Leigh"

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Can 'she' speak? : spirituality in/through psychology, feminisms, and feminist postructuralism : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in Psychology at Massey University
(Massey University, 1996) Coombes, Leigh
In the context of women's exclusion from knowledge production and reproduction in psychology, this thesis is a reading of psychological, feminist and poststructuralist feminist texts for discursive resources that constitute spirituality. These readings informed my analysis of texts produced by 10 women. The analysis was focused on three questions: Do these texts reproduce the discourses identified in psychological, feminist or poststructuralist feminist accounts of spirituality? Are other discursive resources used, especially those which may be regarded as 'subjugated knowledges'? Do the subject positions constituted through the discourses realised in these texts, challenge the phallocentric positioning of women at this local site of accounting for 'spiritual experience'? The discursive strategies used in analysis were informed by Parker's (1992) criteria for identifying discourses. The analysis focused on whether the women reproduced the discourses identified as they articulated their experiences of spirituality. Other discourses were identified. The discursive resources identified in the texts and their possibilities of transforming phallocentrism are discussed.
Care as a Contemporary Paradox in a Global Market
(Massey University, 2011) Rogerson, Ann; Morgan, Mandy; Coombes, Leigh
The contemporary mother faces difficult choices when deciding whether to be either a ‘stay at home’ or a ‘working mother’. Conflicting discourses of good and bad mothering revolve around a political divide under pressure, one that territorialises the public and private domains. Gilligan (1982) famously highlighted the existence of these domains by challenging Kohlberg’s findings that men were endowed with higher moral reasoning powers than women. Disappointed by what she identified as the masculinist bias of Kohlberg’s work, Gilligan conducted her own research, finding that men and women reasoned differently but equitably. Gilligan’s thesis now theoretically informs a feminist ethics of care that has reputedly transformed political spatial boundaries of the public and private domains, domains traditionally gendered as masculine and feminine. Yet the ‘care’ that Gilligan has drawn our attention to is seemingly a new phenomenon. Appearing in language around the same time as the birth of Gilligan’s feminist ethics and indeed amidst the growing dilemma of the working mother, this care shows no visible sign of its maternal origins. In this paper, I attempt to define and locate care amidst the dismantling of the spatial divide that separates the public and private, a dismantling that coincides with the commodification of care within a global market.
Contemporary Masquerade: Work-Life Balance and Modern Tragedies of (Mis)Perceived/(Mis)Placed Social Agency
(School of Psychology, Massey University, 2012) Rogerson, Ann; Morgan, Mandy; Coombes, Leigh
Within contemporary life, women struggle within discourses of stay-at-home mothering and working mother in terms of the detriment to a child’s development. Although contemporary research tends to isolate work-life balance as a separate set of conflicting discourses to study, I suggest that this isolation is misleading. Work-life balance encompasses every aspect of a woman’s speaking being or conscious home, social, caring and working experiences. Considering work-life as allencompassing allows for interesting interpretations when framing women’s work-life experiences within the confines of a language that seeks to dissect them into discrete parts. Furthermore, conflict surrounding work and life is not new and provide a cornerstone of traditional psychoanalytic theories of human development. Within this paper, I consider contemporary discourses of work-life balance, within the context of Riviere’s psychoanalytical concept of masquerade and Lacanian psychoanalysis that rereads Freud’s original works as a theory of discourse.
Globalisation: The Experience of Malay Adolescents with Conduct Problems
(School of Psychology, Massey University, 2012) Daud, Mohd Najmi; Coombes, Leigh; Venkateswar, Sita; Ross, Kirsty
This paper attempts to explore the experiences of Malay ado-lescents with conduct problems within the Malaysian context of globalisation. It is undeniable that to some extent globalisation offers opportunities for a country to progress to be a greater and more competitive nation. In fact, the Malaysian government is highly inspired by the concept of globalisation in progressing towards the vision of becoming a developed nation by the year 2020. Nevertheless, globalisation as a process is very demanding requiring a lot of changes in the Malaysian political, cultural, economic, educational and social landscape. In addition, many of the changes require inculcating foreign cultural values that tend to be inconsistent with local practices. Without adequate preparation, such inconsistency potentially affects the locally defined well-being among vulnerable groups, especially adolescents. There is consistent evidence that shows a significant relationship between changes with respect to globalisation and conduct problems among adolescents. However, how far the affected adolescents understand and adapt with the globalisation process, particularly in the Malaysian context remains elusive. Therefore, it is essential to explore their understandings and experiences on different aspects of globalisation that significantly affect their lives.
The Politics of Policing Family Violence in New Zealand: An Overview
(School of Psychology, Massey University,, 2012) Benschop, Maria; Coombes, Leigh; Morgan, Mandy; Gammon, Ruth
In 2012, the New Zealand Police introduced a new Family Violence Policy to guide police response to family violence occurrences including a new tool for assessing situational risk factors. The Ontario Domestic Assault Risk Assessment (ODARA) is a 13 item actuarial measure for intimate partner assault recidivism developed in Canada (Hilton, Harris, Rice, Houghton & Eke, 2008). It is crucial to understand how the changes in police policy and procedures that involve ODARA affect the safety and wellbeing of domestic violence victims. Victim safety and protection are policing priorities. The police response and understanding of family violence has changed over the last 40 years from police viewing the domestic incident as a private relationship matter with minimal police intervention, to a criminal investigation developing from the pro arrest strategy (Ford, 1986; Ford, 1993). This paper traces the history of policing policy changes in family violence that led to the introduction of ODARA in 2012. Four key turning points are identified, with the aim of gathering an understanding of how policy emerges in policing family violence.
Power, partnership, and pussy : women's experiences of sex and consent in abusive relationships : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Clinical Psychology at Massey University, Whanganui-a-tara/Wellington, Aotearoa/New Zealand / Jasmine Gillespie-Gray.
(Massey University, 2022) Gillespie-Gray, Jasmine
This thesis draws on feminist post-structural theory, and the work of Nicola Gavey and Evan Stark, to bring to light the ways gendered sexpectations and coercive control work together within women’s stories to shape them towards catering for his (sexual) pleasure, rendering the women’s ability to say yes, no, or maybe to consensual sex, and meaningfully shape their sexual experiences, (virtually) non-existent. These gendered power relations produced women who were desperately, compliantly, and/or fearfully sexual within abusive heterosexual relationships. My thesis has sought to resist neoliberal postfeminist individualisation of women’s abuse in favour of the feminist mantra the personal is (STILL) political. From this feminist activist stance and in the spirit of conscientisation, I have creatively resisted institutional expectations of a doctoral thesis in favour of accessibility and the engagement of women (and our allies) outside the ivory tower of academia. If you are an academic reader this may be challenging to your hegemonic understanding of what a thesis “should” be like, especially in terms of content, style, language, and structure – ok basically everything! But I have taken this approach because I think it embodies the social justice aspirations of critical feminist psychology. In this sense, the presentation of this thesis is a form of academic activism, consistent with the theory and politics I have been immersed in over the last five years as I journeyed into the depths of our (sexual and relational) abuse. Finally, I have undertaken my own healing and conscientisation because of this research, which has led to a transformation of self and the reimagining of (my) relating and fucking towards safety, equity, and pleasure for all involved. I offer my reflections on this journey at the end of my thesis as resistance to the dominant expectations of women and OUR sexuality, and as hope that things can be different. In love and rage Jasmine
Problematising Effectiveness: The Inclusion of Victim Advocacy Services in Living Without Violence Programme Provision and Evaluation
(School of Psychology, Massey University, 2012) Denne, Stephanie; Coombes, Leigh; Morgan, Mandy
Advocacy services in collaboration with living without violence programmes have the potential to increase experiences of safety and well-being for the victims of domestic violence. However, advocacy services are not always offered within programmes and the influence of advocacy is often over-looked when evaluating the ‘effectiveness’ of programme provision. An Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis of semi-structured interviews with five (ex) partners of men who had completed a living without violence programme found that advocacy services meaningfully increased victims’ feelings of safety and well-being independent from changes, or lack of change, in the men’s violent behaviour. Therefore, victim advocacy may be a valuable addition to living without violence programmes and can potentially offer a broader, multidimensional understanding of ‘effectiveness’ in evaluations of programme success.
(Re)mapping women’s cosmology : transformative potentia of women’s stories : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Clinical Psychology at Massey University, Whanganui-a-tara/Wellington, Aotearoa/New Zealand
(Massey University, 2023-06-30) Wass, Thea
Binary difference is deeply rooted within the heart of European philosophy and underpins contemporary understandings of sexual difference. Forces of power relations circulate to uphold binary categories of gender that conflates man with the universal, upholding a single model of male subjectivity and inscribing meaning onto the bodies of women. In this research, I have engaged with a narrative approach to map a cosmology of ten women’s stories, connecting women’s bodies and experiences to the flow of forces that shape their lives through a complex assemblage of cultural practices. Thinking with Rosie Braidotti I have endeavoured to sketch a cartography of the multiple embedded, embodied and affective social positions constituted by forces operational in, and immanent to the production and circulation of knowledge about sexual difference. Relational ethics in feminist standpoint inquiry enabled me to attend to relational processes which contributed to the co-articulation of these stories, and to open out towards the multiple possibilities available outside established hierarchical categories of gendered subjectivities. Through this process, light is cast on the material conditions in which forces come to inscribe and inhabit women’s bodies as flows of power capable of both “entrapment (potestas) and as empowerment (potentia)” (Braidotti, 2019). This research resists phallogocentric notions of the universal by re-orienting towards the affirmative potential of women’s bodies made available through interconnectedness and ethical transformation in processes of becoming. By paying attention to the situated and affirmatively encompassing differences within and between women, bodies can be understood as a site of resistance and transformation.
Seeking the Voice of Experience: The Complexities of Researching Women’s Accounts of Their (Ex-) Partner’s Engagement with Living Free from Violence Programmes
(Massey University, 2011) Denne, Stephanie C; Coombes, Leigh; Morgan, Mandy
Previous research into the effectiveness and impact of domestic violence programmes has often focused on recidivism and re-offence data or self-report measures. Such research is constrained by a reliance on incidences of violence being officially reported and by legal definitions of intimate violence, limiting our understandings of women’s lived experiences of safety. Missing voice research is problematic because of the tensions between research processes and the prioritisation of maintaining women’s safety. To be able to engage in the process of researching women’s experiences of their (ex) partners’ engagement with men’s Living Free from Violence programmes requires an understanding of the complexities of developing relationships and processes that privilege and protect women’s safety throughout the research journey, and necessitates an understanding of the barriers to participation. This involves a collaborative and supportive working partnership to be formed and developed between the researcher and the community, one that at all times maintains the awareness that women’s safety must be the focus of research, both in outcome and process. This paper discusses the complexities involved in our attempts to understand how women experience issues of change and safety as a result of their partner’s involvement in a local Living Free from Violence programme.
Stripping the Skin off Humour
(Massey University, 2011) Rangiwananga, Melissa; Coombes, Leigh; McCreanor, Tim
Culturally specific hegemonic processes produce authority over meaning and exclude possibilities for authentic ethical encounters. Contingent on a binary relationship between ‘self’ and ‘other’, humour holds social tensions in particular ways. Where contemporary understandings of humour tend to posit humour as self-evidently desirable (Billig, 2005), there is an absence of psychological attention to the social power relations that constitute the “performativity” of humour – or as Butler (1993, p. 2) suggests, “the reiterative power of discourse to produce the phenomena that it regulates and constrains”. This paper draws on the experience of living the contradictions of hegemonic discourse that produces social positions where laughter is enacted to enable a ‘safe’ encounter. If humour occurs on the boundaries of social convention then what does that mean for the complex relationships at “the hyphen” (Fine & Sirin, 2007; Jones & Jenkins, 2008) between us/them? Is it possible that rather than simply maintaining a particular social order, humour may also enable a re-defining of the contours of social relations? Could humour open spaces at the boundaries through recognition of multiple competing political discourses and make it possible for an ethical response that seeks authentic encounters with the ‘other’?
Te whakaohooho, te whakarauora mauri : the re-awakening and re-vitalising indigenous 'spirit' of power, healing, goodness and wellbeing : a thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Psychology at Massey University, Palmerston North, New Zealand
(Massey University, 2023) Roestenburg, Michelle Waireti Maria
A ‘spirit’ of Indigenous healing, wellbeing and re-vitalisation has been quietly, yet surely re-awakening our personal-global Indigenous hearts, homes and nations for the last few decades. To trace, track and understand the source, force and course of this movement and release much needed healing into our communities, the stories of six Indigenous people who were raised in ‘against-all-odds’ identity development conditions, yet are now proudly and perpetuatingly Indigenous have been received, held, analysed and synthesised. To ensure the Original teachings, stories and Indigenous-centric scholarship of this research remain grounded in the vital and re-vitalising relevancies of our everyday embodied experiences of Indigenous source, a ‘Mana Wairua’ (‘spirit’ is primary) Kaupapa Māori theoretical form was created. By tracing the growing, yet not well understood movement of Indigenous re-vitalisation into and through my own and other Indigenous people’s hearts, bodies, lives and literature, the power, presence and movement of an indelible Indigenous source force, and the knowings, knowledge and language related to it have been re-emerged. This unstoppable force derives from the source of creation. It inspires the healing, wellbeing and dignity associated with Indigenous identities and development. Even when separated from our people, lands and lifeways, we continue to embody pools of Indigenous knowing that enable us to feel and respond to this force and to our Ancestors. This research confirms, a ‘spirit’ of Indigenous re-vitalisation is indeed stirring in and moving our personal-global indigenous ‘hearts-bodies’ and lives, however, subsequent to the past-ongoing silencing, denigration and dismantling of the institutions that taught us how to understand, speak about and align with it - a yawning discrepancy now exists between our almost unconscious-embodied, ‘individualised’ experiences, and our collective capacities to tune into and deliberately release these life-giving vitalities into all levels of our lives. In accord with Indigenous source and Ancestors, this work calls us to wake up and illumine our personal-collective-global Indigenous minds with the ‘spirit’ of re-vitalisation that is already moving our hearts and bodies. It is time for us to turn towards and come home to the wholeness of our indomitable and sovereign Indigenous healing, wellbeing, dignities and potentials.
Tracing monsters : the textual constitution of woman-mother-childkiller, or, A reading of the non-origin of the monstrous feminine in the specific instance of a case of child murder : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Psychology at Massey University, Palmerston North, New Zealand
(Massey University, 2000) Coombes, Leigh
This project begins with a story of my encounter with a sense of the similarities and differences between my own experience of motherhood and that of another woman charged, convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment for child murder, and a question about how it is possible for our experience to be so similar and different. My understanding of this encounter is informed by theories of 'écriture féminine' and the assumption that the diversity of women's lived experiences is delimited by discourses through which 'woman' is constituted culturally and historically. In relation to poststructuralist assumptions about the constitution of subjectivity, my initial question is transformed into a problematic. This transformation is performed through a theoretical engagement with work by Foucault, Lyotard, White and Lacan. In reading these theories the problematic of woman-mother-childkiller becomes a question of how specific women are positioned within a phallocentric system of signification through narratives legitimated by a phallocentric moral order and told through discourses of legitimated knowledge of subjectivity: the 'psy' discourses. The complicity of women's positioning within moral order and social power relations demands attention to the ethics of the problematic and its mode of address. To address the possibility of an ethical response, I make use of Derrida's work on deconstruction as ethics. After reading Derrida the general question of women's positioning becomes a specific deconstructive reading of a narrative told at the site of coarticulation of legal practice and psychological discourse: a reading of the judge's summation in the trial of R v Lisé Turner. The deconstruction is practised through reading for the traces of sexual difference in the constitution of the subject in Law and psychological discourse, the legitimation of knowledge practised as a delimitation of psychological discourse in relation to Law, the constitution of crime, disease, mental disorder, disease of the mind, insanity, defect of reason, criminal responsibility and diminished responsibility. Of particular concern are the traces of sexual difference in the iterations of psychological discourse incorporated into the body of the judge's summation. This reading is prefaced by an historical account of the relationship between psychological discourse and legal practice. This is followed by readings of the judge's summation for its instruction on legal doctrine, practices of exclusion and inclusion, constitution of legal subjects, and its narrative endpoint. Since the trial was defended through a plea of insanity, expert testimony on the accused's 'mental condition' was iterated in the judge's summation. Readings of the judge's summation on the plea of insanity are prefaced by a reading of relevant definitions and caveats from The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV): the legitimate text of psychological knowledge privileged by Law here. The testimony of psychological expert witnesses is also read as prefacing the particular iterations of psychological discourse in the Judge's summation. From these readings I then return to the problematic constitution of woman-mother-childkiller as a problematic of justice.
Un-strangering 'the stranger' in a strange land : a multi-perspective, participant-led, exploration of in/ex-clusion in NZ mainstream high schools - privileging the voices of senior 'high-functioning' autistic students : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Psychology at Massey University, Palmerston North, New Zealand
(Massey University, 2021) Crooks, Sharon
New Zealand’s (NZ) ‘inclusive’ school policies enable autistic students to attend a mainstream school of their choice, with the expectation they will belong, feel accepted, contribute, and participate in ‘school life’. Research has typically focused on biogenetic origins and diagnostic specificity, providing medicalised and stereotypical ways of understanding autistic people. Few qualitative studies have explored autistic students’ understandings and everyday lived experiences of ‘being autistic’ and ‘being in an inclusive mainstream high school’. Excluding their voice from research, necessarily constrains development of policy, pedagogy, and praxis, which might facilitate more inclusive experiences for this population of students. This study was the first in NZ to focus on the lived experiences of autistic adolescents in their senior years (Levels 1-3 NCEA). A multi-perspective, qualitative phenomenological design enabled three tertiary students, three parents, and seven advocates, to augment contributions from five high-functioning autistic adolescents. This research was underpinned by a feminist standpoint epistemology and Bronfenbrenner’s bioecological model, privileging first person experiences and contextual influences. Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis enabled participants’ understandings and experiences to be explored. Tertiary students illumined how medical model understandings of disability constrained and enabled identity formation in high school and implicated being understood. Most of the autistic participants drew on neoliberal ‘governmentality’ to problematise barriers to inclusion, namely ‘governance’ (dominant culture, school rules, and regulation of ‘space’), teacher performativity, and curriculum management. Salient interpersonal barriers included authoritative teachers, social cliques, ‘invisible’ bullying, and ‘one-off’ grievances. ‘Being excluded’ was painful and resulted in feeling ‘de-valued’, impacting motivation and opportunities for success. Facilitators to inclusion were embedded within meaningful interactions, demonstrative care, and common interests, aiding a sense of acceptance, and belonging, but not always resulting in ‘contributing’ and ‘participating’. High school was experienced by autistic participants as a political site where in/ex-clusion ‘gets done’ through ordinary technologies that ‘sift and shift’ students, according to sameness and difference, or ontological ‘otherness’. This study addresses prominent diagnostic and identity issues, academic and social achievement, and support, all of which are primary concerns for educationalists (including educational psychologists) striving to understand inclusion and improve outcomes for autistic students.
‘Wade in the Water …': Rethinking adoptees' stories of reunion
(Massey University, 2011) Blake, Denise; Coombes, Leigh; Morgan, Mandy
In 1955, the Aotearoa/New Zealand government legislated the closed stranger adoption period. Approximately 80,000 children were constructed as a legal fiction when deemed as if born to a legally married couple. Birth family information was permanently sealed. Yet being raised in a fictional subject position and being denied access to any family of origin has consequences for all involved. After ten years of lobbying, the Adult Adoption Information Act (1985) came into effect. The power of that legislation was to overturn the strategies that suppressed adoptees’ rights to know details of their birth. Adult adoptees over the age of 20 years could access their original birth certificates, which provided a birth mother’s name. With this identifying information, reunions became possible. Birth family reunions involve a diverse range of experiences, reflecting the ways in which adoptees are contextually and historically produced. This paper reconsiders the identity implications of reunion stories using the theoretical concept of hybrid identity. The complexities of reunions are multiple, and adoptees negotiate their identities through being both born to and born as if and yet neither identity is safe. In the production of this hybrid story, it was possible to see the political and moral trajectories that enable and constrain a sense of self through the complexities of a legal context that produces binary subject positions.
Wade in the Water: Awash in the Sense of Adoption
(School of Psychology, Massey University, 2012) Blake, Denise; Morgan, Mandy; Coombes, Leigh
A discursive approach to knowledge contends that language is the constitutive force of experience and lived reality. Meaning is created through language use within relationships, while discourses function as the statements that produce knowledge, power and truth claims. We cannot step outside of the discourses through which our knowledge of experience is produced, though their complexity always allows us to resist particular identities that are discursively available to us. Based on interviews with 12 adoptees constituted within the ‘closed’ adoption period between 1955 and 1985, this narrative analysis represents the way in which the adoptive body matters to participants’ experiences of adoption and their resistances to the discourses that produce knowledge of adoption: Embodiment needed to be incorporated into this discursive work. Knowing, accessing and beingin- the-world are achieved through our senses in everyday life. We engage and shape cultural norms that enable and constrain corporeality. The adoptive experience is lived and felt through bodies that struggle to articulate their corporeality through discourse. Without discourses fit for purpose, speaking embodiment in and through adoption is precarious and adoptees attempt to articulate subjectivities beyond those allowed. This paper discusses the strategies used to materialise body matters in researching adoption.

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