CARE-JVBU PROJECT: VIOLENCE PREVENTION NEEDS IN DIVERSE COMMUNITIES
The Center for Culture-Centered Approach to Research and Evaluation (CARE) at Massey University will use the Culture-Centred Approach (CCA), a framework for culture-based engagement, to dialogue with the targeted diverse communities (disabled people, older persons, rainbow communities, and new migrants) to
- identify existing community needs in the context of primary prevention of family violence and sexual violence;
- identify community-driven solutions based on these needs; and
- create a national action plan for violence prevention for the target communities based on community voice.
CARE’S COVID19 PROJECTS
Experiences with COVID19 among gig workers
Recent studies reveal that gig workers face fundamental threats to their health and wellbeing amidst large-scale transformations in neoliberal economies. However, the growing body of research on the challenges experienced by gig workers has not really attended to the health challenges constituted by the gig economy. This study examines the ways in which gig workers are negotiating their work, health and wellbeing amidst COVID19.
The study is designed
- To comprehend the ways in which gig workers are experiencing COVID19.
- To understand how gig workers are negotiating COVID19.
- To explore the solutions to COVID19 imagined by gig workers.
The study will draw on the culture-centered approach to examine the meanings of COVID19 and its negotiations among gig workers. The Culture-Centered Approach (CCA) deals with subaltern classes who have been subdued and absent in dominant theories and models (Dutta, 2011). The findings of this study aim to create healthy and safe work environments for gig workers, through in-depth interviews and advisory group meetings.
For this study, the researcher will be recruiting participants who are working in the gig economy. An information sheet will be shared with the participants. The study involves in-depth- face to face interviews with up to 500 participants and is expected to last 60-90 minutes. Recruitment of participants of the study will be done using purposive and snowball sampling, mostly carried out digitally to begin with. Interviews will be conducted mostly on digital platforms and will be recorded. Interviewees will be asked about the issues faced by them at their workplace, about their understanding and negotiation of health and wellbeing in daily lives, their challenges with COVID19, and the ways in which they negotiate these challenges. The interview will be transcribed for analysis. A summary of the findings will be made available to the participants upon request.
Experiences with COVID-19 among low-income households
CARE’s research project is about the experiences of COVID-19 among low-income households in New Zealand and across the world. The aim of this research is to understand the everyday health experiences that individuals and whānau face whilst negotiating structures of low-income and/or poverty including the potential solutions they foresee in addressing the health challenges. Poverty is included because there are individuals and whānau around the world who self-describe as living in poverty.
GLOBAL MEANINGS OF HEALTH PROJECT
POVERTY IN AOTEAROA NEW ZEALAND
This research project is aimed on health experiences among those experiencing poverty in New Zealand. The aim of this research is to understand how individuals living in poverty in New Zealand seek health, the challenges to health, and the potential solutions they foresee in addressing the health challenges they experience across three site in Aotearoa New Zealand.
- HIGHBURY
- GLEN INNES
- FEILDING
DOCTORAL RESEARCH PROJECTS UNDER CARE DIRECTOR’S SUPERVISION
THEORISING MĀORI HEALTH AND WELLBEING: VOICES FROM THE MARGINS
by Ngā Hau Christine Elers
How do Māori living on the ‘margins of the margins’ in society voice their articulations into the creation of Māori models of health and wellbeing?
A culture-centered approach (‘CCA’) turns to the voices missing from dominant
communicative spaces and builds infrastructures for listening and co-creates platforms
for voice (Dutta, 2008). Underpinning the co-creation of platforms for voices to emerge into mainstream spaces, is the recognition that voice erasure is built into the very notion of health communication (Dutta, 2018).
Configured as ‘top-down’ communication approaches, Māori have been the ongoing target of health communication campaigns to arrest high morbidity and mortality rates that constitute a humanitarian crisis (Whānau Ora Commissioning Agency, 2019). Health communication messages are often deployed that deny the knowledge production and agentic capacity of Whānau by serving culturally-laden health messages to conform the behaviour of individuals and Whānau, without critiquing the myriad of structural inequalities embedded into New Zealand’s public health system.
The CCA is an approach to social change communication by de-centering expert modelling
enshrined within the ideology of neoliberalism (Dutta, 2020). The CCA calls into question
dominant health approaches that erase the voices for whom health campaigns and services are designed for and can offer co-created strategies towards social change communication ensconsed in Whānau and community voice.
EXPLORING MEANINGS OF HEALTH AND WELLBEING AMONG MIGRANT INDIAN NURSES IN NEW ZEALAND USING A CULTURE-CENTERED APPROACH
by Pooja Jayan
Nurses arguably are one of the most significant lifelines of the global health labour force. Nurses are fundamentally associated with New Zealand’s health priorities and better health for all people. Like other developed nations New Zealand requires Internationally Qualified Nurses (IQNs) to fill shortages in the healthcare sector. Recent studies reveal that IQNs are increasingly migrating from Asian countries to developed countries and are younger. However, there are reports of many IQNs going through racism and cultural scrutiny in New Zealand. It is observed that workplace violence is on the rise in New Zealand and bullying among nurses is found to be higher than other health workers.
Research indicates that the work environment of nurses consists of physically and psychologically draining tasks, while that of IQNs is often marked by discriminatory approaches. In the stressful and under-resourced milieu that IQNs work in , workplace issues can result in damaging outcomes. Hence, it is necessary to explore the experiences of IQNs in the healthcare sector.
Through the lens of a Culture-Centered approach (CCA), this study focuses on one of the major groups of IQNs in New Zealand, the migrant Indian nurses, by putting forth participatory platforms for voicing their experiences that are currently hidden from major discursive spaces.
CARE’s ANTI-RACISM PROJECT
More information to follow.