Papers by Gail Adams-Hutcheson
Feminist geographies in Aotearoa New Zealand: cultural, social and political moments, 2019
Aotearoa New Zealand is a nation of promise, potential and enigma: it was the first country in th... more Aotearoa New Zealand is a nation of promise, potential and enigma: it was the first country in the world where women gained the vote in 1893 and now boasts the youngest woman world leader in 2017. It is also a postcolonial nation where structural racism, homophobia, and sexism persist, yet it has also given legal personhood to a river. Our Country Report foregrounds Aotearoa New Zealand feminist geographic scholarship that responds to, reflects, and sometimes resists such contrasts and contradictions at the national scale. We employ the lens of the 2017 national election to critically engage with current gendered and indigenous politics in the country. Analyzing these politics through three ‘feminist moments,’ our paper highlights the breadth and scope of current Aotearoa New Zealand feminist geographic scholarship and directions.
Gender, Place & Culture A Journal of Feminist Geography , 2019
In this article we discuss the ways in which a feminist ethos of care and the associated practice... more In this article we discuss the ways in which a feminist ethos of care and the associated practice of mentoring allows feminist geography to flourish in teaching, working and learning spaces. We argue that our working relationship – based on care, mentoring and friendship – is crucial in order to survive and deflect structural inequalities. Our working relationship spans across undergraduate, graduate, postgraduate and early career stages at a single university. We offer our personal stories as examples of establishing and maintaining collaborative mentoring and caring work relationships. Further, our commitment to a feminist ethos of care and mentoring is vital for our selfcare and causes trouble for structural power differentials. First, we share stories about how our working relationship began and developed within the critical, caring and fragile spaces of the Geography Programme at the University of Waikato and other feminist geography networks. Second, literature on care, mentoring and collaboration is discussed, with a focus on feminist politics of mentoring and collaboration. Third, we return to our own experiences to illustrate the ways embodied and emotional subjectivities and associated power dynamics shape mentoring and care relationships. Examples of joint supervision and research are offered to illustrate complex sets of spatially significant emotions, feelings and subjectivities. Finally, we highlight the ways in which place matters if feminist geography is to flourish.
PhD Research Precis for Gender, Place and Culture: A Journal of Feminist Geography
Social and Cultural Geography, 2017
Abstract
This paper focuses on the much-neglected contribution of weather to research encounters.... more Abstract
This paper focuses on the much-neglected contribution of weather to research encounters. Affective atmospheres and elemental geographies are used as a platform to examine the vibrant materialities of the troposphere. The weather encapsulates human and non-human bodies, moods and actions in an enveloping space and I trace how these materialities and immaterialities are transmitted between bodies in the research setting. In a (post)phenomenological sense, certain atmospheric and meteorological events figure as lively participants. Through three research moments with farmers, I discuss how various weather conditions such as a warm balmy spring, wet muddy winter and the suffocating heat of summer enables thinking on the relational weight of atmospheres. By following participants throughout the circadian rhythms of farming over a year, seasonal fluctuations were recorded. Thus, researcher effort to comprehend how bodies become attuned and sensitive to the causal powers of the troposphere is foregrounded within share-farming experiences.
This article contributes to debates that consider things (buildings) that have previously been as... more This article contributes to debates that consider things (buildings) that have previously been assumed to be bounded and fixed. When thinking about how literally anything can become mobile, this article addresses how buildings “live on” through the bodies of participants. The notion of material affects is advanced to draw together a complex set of ideas on vibrant materialities. Material affects, then, entangle the earth, forces, embodiment, and micro mobilities to expose the vibrant matter of buildings. Empirical material is drawn from semistructured interviews with people who relocated out of Christchurch following the 2010 and 2011 earthquakes and aftershocks. In relocation, acute spatial awareness and sensitivity to movement and vibration—that is, the minute shudders and flexes of buildings—colonized the bodies of participants. Material affects are able to challenge the distinction between vital energy (life) forces and materiality.
The mobilities framework offers a particularly informative and potent paradigm through which to d... more The mobilities framework offers a particularly informative and potent paradigm through which to draw together interdisciplinary scholarship about the present world. In this introduction—and indeed, derived from a symposia on mobilities in a dangerous world—we explore the dynamics of contemporary mobilities through a critical focus on “dangerous” spaces and places. We discuss the potential of a sustained dialogue between mobilities studies and our focus on risk, adversity, and perceptions of danger. Although disasters link to four of the articles, ideas are expanded to draw on the multiple scales of risk and danger in everyday life within and across an array of international contexts. In this special issue, dynamic mobilities are facilitated by ships, skateboards, buildings, art, and cities; they are also encountered in darkness, in light, and through bodies as well as physical and imagined movements.
New Zealand Geographer, 2014
Over the last 20 years, there has been considerable discussion around the changing nature of tert... more Over the last 20 years, there has been considerable discussion around the changing nature of tertiary education. Much of this work has described how tertiary institutions and academic staff are forced to compete, account for and justify their work within a narrowing neoliberal discourse characterised by competition and entrepreneurialism, the privileging of certain forms of knowledge above others and the monetisation of academic labour. Following from the postgraduate workshop at the New Zealand Geographical Society 2012 conference, we, as postgraduate students, provide a contribution to this discussion that explores how postgraduate students might 'perform powerfully' through collective action to enact a different university in an increasingly uncertain and entrepreneurial academic climate. We outline various forms of collective action to maximise postgraduate students' sense of agency and seek to highlight possibilities in an increasingly uncertain and entrepreneurial academic climate.
(Im)mobilities are considered to encapsulate a broad range of projects that establish a 'moment-d... more (Im)mobilities are considered to encapsulate a broad range of projects that establish a 'moment-driven' social science. I argue that moment driven research needs to be in conversation with an ethical document. It is how the ethical landscape responds to this increasingly dynamic and radically open interaction, while avoiding the excess dangers of institutionalised review that warrants more attention. Through the lens of two research projects, one based around relocated populations from post-disaster Christchurch and the other on sharemilkers in the Waikato, mobilities and ethics are discussed. In short, the mobilities of participants altered the ethical dynamics of research.
Fieldwork is being stretched in new directions across time and space. In this article we examine ... more Fieldwork is being stretched in new directions across time and space. In this article we examine the kinds of emotional and affective encounters constructed in online interviews. We draw on Lefebvre's notion of rhythm and Ash's concept of 'affective atmospheres' to help identify moments of disjuncture in research interviews. These moments of disjuncture can be prompted by researchers and participants not being able to share a range of senses (touch, smell and taste) during Skype interviews. The technology does not sink into the background but instead can, for some, prompt an uncomfortable 'affective atmosphere'. Finally, we argue that bodies, performance, digital interfaces, movement, senses, emotion and affect need to grappled with methodologically as increasing numbers of researchers turn to online interviewing.
By focusing on the somatic qualities of trauma this paper addresses emotion and affect as a means... more By focusing on the somatic qualities of trauma this paper addresses emotion and affect as a means to link together trauma's spatial, physical, subconscious and psychosocial dimensions. Its aim is to extend theoretical discussion on spatially located affectual moments of trauma by utilising the concept of skin. Skin is used here as a metaphorical and theoretical framework for examining ideas of boundaries and containment. A container is a deceptively simple idea but requires constant maintenance. Trauma, however, often threatens to spill over the boundaries of containers exposing the fluidity of boundaries both theoretical and material. Close attention is paid to the psychoanalytic idea of skin to extrapolate how trauma draws in ideas of surfaces and abjection. In some ways abjection exposes the fragility of borders, how they can be threatened from both without and within. When working across the skin, an examination of what bodies do in both the post-disaster environment (Christchurch) and in relocated spaces (Waikato) is undertaken to illuminate the theoretical premises of this work. People move toward others in order to share their experiences, thus, trauma is encountered as both: individual and social, interior and exterior, incorporating body and psyche rather than separating the terms.
No two disasters are the same. Accordingly, sociocultural geographers are aptly positioned to inc... more No two disasters are the same. Accordingly, sociocultural geographers are aptly positioned to include the
place-based and temporal aspects of disasters in their analyses. By examining the experiences of 19
Cantabrian families who have relocated to the Waikato region, this paper offers stories from the
margins of ‘traditional’ disaster research. Often researchers know a great deal about the population at
the site of the disaster, but little about the people who move away. Further, by investigating
relocation, the insider/outsider dichotomy is challenged, as participants in this research are
simultaneously inside and outside the earthquake events and their ongoing impacts. ‘Ownership’ of
the disaster narratives, including research, lays open ideas of who can speak for whom. What and
who is inside and/or outside a disaster event also allows a finer distinction of how place attachment
filters experience and ideas of recovery, which are not diminished under internal migration.
Keywords: cultural geography; disasters; insider/outsider; recovery; relocation
Area Journal Royal Geographical Society, Jul 2013
Christchurch's major earthquake on 22 February 2011. The article concludes that, by focusing on t... more Christchurch's major earthquake on 22 February 2011. The article concludes that, by focusing on transference and countertransference, unconscious and embodied connections can be fore-grounded. Research, then, becomes a cooperative space where the researcher and the participants form a knowledge framework that includes senses, emotion and affect.
Book Chapters by Gail Adams-Hutcheson
Theses by Gail Adams-Hutcheson
"Emotion and affect are enmeshed in the lives of relocated Cantabrians. A project on the lived ge... more "Emotion and affect are enmeshed in the lives of relocated Cantabrians. A project on the lived geographies of relocation disrupts the predominance of model based approaches in hazards and disaster literature. The previously taken-for-granted aspects of how people relate to one another and are in turn shaped by those relationships are of central concern.
The research brings together the stories of people from 19 households who moved to the Waikato region of New Zealand as a result of the Canterbury earthquakes and aftershocks. It is argued that exploring relocation through the lens of emotion and affect can give rise to an understanding of the collective aspects of non-conscious, embodied and emotional life-worlds of relocatees. Semi-structured interviews, spontaneous focus groups and follow-up interviews were used to access emotional and affectual geographies and participants’ life experiences.
Three main themes are addressed in relation to disasters: 1) bodies which are proximate and connected to other bodies; 2) sub-conscious and psychosocial aspects of relocation, especially ambivalence; and 3) the co-mingling of materials (buildings, architecture) with an emotional and affective sense of self. To explain each of these themes in turn, attention is paid to what bodies do to illustrate that proximity and connection are both present and desired by respondents in post-disaster and relocated spaces. The second theme of sub-conscious and psychosocial impacts explores how ambivalence exposes complexity and contradiction, which are tightly bound to the experience of relocation. The third theme of materiality is used to make clear how bodies and buildings are co-constituted. Homes, churches and other city buildings can become containers of memory inspiring feelings of dread, loss, and grief but also, comfort, belonging and identity. Emotion and affect, then, are critical to understanding the impacts of the earthquakes and relocation on people and communities, they are a call to think about complexity and are considered to be a large component of the human experience of surviving a disaster."
Book Reviews by Gail Adams-Hutcheson
Conference Presentations by Gail Adams-Hutcheson
This research examines spaces of affect and emotion and issues surrounding mobility. Mass media ... more This research examines spaces of affect and emotion and issues surrounding mobility. Mass media have investigated multiple trajectories of the Christchurch earthquakes, but relatively little has been said about people who have relocated...
This research examines issues surrounding mobility, disaster and spaces of emotion and affect. P... more This research examines issues surrounding mobility, disaster and spaces of emotion and affect. Poststructuralism has been at the heart of many theoretical debates over the past twnety years, howver, recent work in cultural theory has incorporated complex philosophical conceptualisations of affect and emotion...
Empathy and non-conscious communication become intergral analytics, drawing on participants' narr... more Empathy and non-conscious communication become intergral analytics, drawing on participants' narratives and especially taking note of the intense and intangible feelings that are often expressed by respondents brings embodiment and the sub-conscious together...
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Papers by Gail Adams-Hutcheson
This paper focuses on the much-neglected contribution of weather to research encounters. Affective atmospheres and elemental geographies are used as a platform to examine the vibrant materialities of the troposphere. The weather encapsulates human and non-human bodies, moods and actions in an enveloping space and I trace how these materialities and immaterialities are transmitted between bodies in the research setting. In a (post)phenomenological sense, certain atmospheric and meteorological events figure as lively participants. Through three research moments with farmers, I discuss how various weather conditions such as a warm balmy spring, wet muddy winter and the suffocating heat of summer enables thinking on the relational weight of atmospheres. By following participants throughout the circadian rhythms of farming over a year, seasonal fluctuations were recorded. Thus, researcher effort to comprehend how bodies become attuned and sensitive to the causal powers of the troposphere is foregrounded within share-farming experiences.
place-based and temporal aspects of disasters in their analyses. By examining the experiences of 19
Cantabrian families who have relocated to the Waikato region, this paper offers stories from the
margins of ‘traditional’ disaster research. Often researchers know a great deal about the population at
the site of the disaster, but little about the people who move away. Further, by investigating
relocation, the insider/outsider dichotomy is challenged, as participants in this research are
simultaneously inside and outside the earthquake events and their ongoing impacts. ‘Ownership’ of
the disaster narratives, including research, lays open ideas of who can speak for whom. What and
who is inside and/or outside a disaster event also allows a finer distinction of how place attachment
filters experience and ideas of recovery, which are not diminished under internal migration.
Keywords: cultural geography; disasters; insider/outsider; recovery; relocation
Book Chapters by Gail Adams-Hutcheson
Theses by Gail Adams-Hutcheson
The research brings together the stories of people from 19 households who moved to the Waikato region of New Zealand as a result of the Canterbury earthquakes and aftershocks. It is argued that exploring relocation through the lens of emotion and affect can give rise to an understanding of the collective aspects of non-conscious, embodied and emotional life-worlds of relocatees. Semi-structured interviews, spontaneous focus groups and follow-up interviews were used to access emotional and affectual geographies and participants’ life experiences.
Three main themes are addressed in relation to disasters: 1) bodies which are proximate and connected to other bodies; 2) sub-conscious and psychosocial aspects of relocation, especially ambivalence; and 3) the co-mingling of materials (buildings, architecture) with an emotional and affective sense of self. To explain each of these themes in turn, attention is paid to what bodies do to illustrate that proximity and connection are both present and desired by respondents in post-disaster and relocated spaces. The second theme of sub-conscious and psychosocial impacts explores how ambivalence exposes complexity and contradiction, which are tightly bound to the experience of relocation. The third theme of materiality is used to make clear how bodies and buildings are co-constituted. Homes, churches and other city buildings can become containers of memory inspiring feelings of dread, loss, and grief but also, comfort, belonging and identity. Emotion and affect, then, are critical to understanding the impacts of the earthquakes and relocation on people and communities, they are a call to think about complexity and are considered to be a large component of the human experience of surviving a disaster."
Book Reviews by Gail Adams-Hutcheson
Conference Presentations by Gail Adams-Hutcheson
This paper focuses on the much-neglected contribution of weather to research encounters. Affective atmospheres and elemental geographies are used as a platform to examine the vibrant materialities of the troposphere. The weather encapsulates human and non-human bodies, moods and actions in an enveloping space and I trace how these materialities and immaterialities are transmitted between bodies in the research setting. In a (post)phenomenological sense, certain atmospheric and meteorological events figure as lively participants. Through three research moments with farmers, I discuss how various weather conditions such as a warm balmy spring, wet muddy winter and the suffocating heat of summer enables thinking on the relational weight of atmospheres. By following participants throughout the circadian rhythms of farming over a year, seasonal fluctuations were recorded. Thus, researcher effort to comprehend how bodies become attuned and sensitive to the causal powers of the troposphere is foregrounded within share-farming experiences.
place-based and temporal aspects of disasters in their analyses. By examining the experiences of 19
Cantabrian families who have relocated to the Waikato region, this paper offers stories from the
margins of ‘traditional’ disaster research. Often researchers know a great deal about the population at
the site of the disaster, but little about the people who move away. Further, by investigating
relocation, the insider/outsider dichotomy is challenged, as participants in this research are
simultaneously inside and outside the earthquake events and their ongoing impacts. ‘Ownership’ of
the disaster narratives, including research, lays open ideas of who can speak for whom. What and
who is inside and/or outside a disaster event also allows a finer distinction of how place attachment
filters experience and ideas of recovery, which are not diminished under internal migration.
Keywords: cultural geography; disasters; insider/outsider; recovery; relocation
The research brings together the stories of people from 19 households who moved to the Waikato region of New Zealand as a result of the Canterbury earthquakes and aftershocks. It is argued that exploring relocation through the lens of emotion and affect can give rise to an understanding of the collective aspects of non-conscious, embodied and emotional life-worlds of relocatees. Semi-structured interviews, spontaneous focus groups and follow-up interviews were used to access emotional and affectual geographies and participants’ life experiences.
Three main themes are addressed in relation to disasters: 1) bodies which are proximate and connected to other bodies; 2) sub-conscious and psychosocial aspects of relocation, especially ambivalence; and 3) the co-mingling of materials (buildings, architecture) with an emotional and affective sense of self. To explain each of these themes in turn, attention is paid to what bodies do to illustrate that proximity and connection are both present and desired by respondents in post-disaster and relocated spaces. The second theme of sub-conscious and psychosocial impacts explores how ambivalence exposes complexity and contradiction, which are tightly bound to the experience of relocation. The third theme of materiality is used to make clear how bodies and buildings are co-constituted. Homes, churches and other city buildings can become containers of memory inspiring feelings of dread, loss, and grief but also, comfort, belonging and identity. Emotion and affect, then, are critical to understanding the impacts of the earthquakes and relocation on people and communities, they are a call to think about complexity and are considered to be a large component of the human experience of surviving a disaster."