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Joe & Melody Faaiu

Diploma in Sign Language & Interpreting graduate Melody Faaiu with fellow AUT graduate and husband Joe.

Husband and Wife Team Graduate

Joe Faaiu has hung up his playing boots and wife Melody has put away the paint brushes as they graduate from AUT this year with new career options.

Husband and wife team Joe and Melody have just completed their Diplomas in Sports & Recreation and Sign Language & Interpreting respectively at AUT this year. 

Joe, a former international rugby player for Manu Samoa, says after he finished playing rugby professionally he needed something else to do.
“I’m interested in using my rugby skills but for coaching now, so the Diploma in Sport & Recreation was the perfect course for me,” he says.

The couple has 2 children so Melody had been working part time in an art shop and says she had the opportunity to go two ways. “I could continue in my job but I didn’t want to be at the mercy of the fickle retail sector or I could re-train and do something that I really wanted.”

Originally from Tauranga, the family moved to Auckland to study at AUT and would like to move back there but will see where job opportunities take them.

Ideally Melody would like to work in the community as an interpreter and Joe would like to coach kids but also has a particular interest in helping at-risk youth.

“I want to try and make some positive changes in kids’ lives. I have a passion for youth and the lost ones,” Joe says.

Studying at AUT was the best option for both Joe and Melody they say.”I guess we were waiting for a door to open so we could walk through and now with qualifications more doors will open for us,” says Melody.

AUT's First Criminology Graduates

John Buttle

AUT Senior Lecturer in Criminology, John Buttle

Sherlock Holmes’ they may not be but the BA Criminology graduates are equipped with skills that could see them take their place in a number of career fields.

At the end of this year the first two students will complete their criminology majors in the degree which started in 2007.

Isaac Henchman is one of the graduates and says his ideal job would be as a criminal profiler but is first going to travel and do some postgraduate study.

“I've always been fascinated by crime, and was already studying history and anthropology with slightly similar themes, then one day I just saw an AUT billboard and decided that's what I should really be doing,” Henchman says.

Henchman is well suited to this kind of degree says senior lecturer in criminology, John Buttle. He says people often don’t really understand what criminology is about. “The building blocks of it are psychology, sociology, political science and a bit of anthropology and economics are helpful with research and analysis skills critical.”

Anyone can study criminology Buttle says, but it helps if you’re naturally curious and inquisitive and obviously interested in the topic.

The first two years are more general with a broad range of papers which will give students a good foundation to go on towards their criminology major.

Criminology isn’t like CSI or Criminal Minds on television. “Those programmes are an exaggeration of what really goes on. NZ simply doesn’t have criminal profilers like you see on TV. They just don’t exist.

“What people think they know about crime is almost always wrong and there’s no argument there. Most people don’t realise that crime is actually decreasing for example.”

Some of the topic areas covered in the degree include the different understandings of crime, policing and society including police corruption and police reform in the New Zealand context. It also covers how prisons are used as a form of punishment.

“You’re not learning how to catch criminals though and that needs to be clear. But it will show you how and why crimes are committed and the social conditions that contributed towards it.

“The BA Criminology will help you make more informed decisions and give you an advantage if you choose to go into the probation or corrections service, police, the courts or as a research analyst for councils or the government.

As part of the degree Henchman completed his co-op placement at ABACUS Counselling, Training and Supervision. They are a company which trains individuals to identify people with issues such as problem gambling, alcohol and other drugs. Was his degree useful for the job? “There are too many overlapping aspects between my placement and the criminology course to list,” he says.

The Third Sex

Associate Professor Dr Sharyn Graham Davies will be appearing on the National Geographic channel as one of the few people in the world who is an expert on gender diversity in Indonesia.

In 2001 Dr Davies’ PHD research on gender in Indonesia was selected to feature on the National Geographic channel and when a new series called Taboo needed an expert on gender the makers of the series knew who to call.

Taboo takes you on a journey beyond your comfort zones and across cultural borders to explore rituals and customs that are acceptable in some cultures, but forbidden, illegal or, reviled in others.

The episode Dr Davies features in is called The Third Sex. Around the world customs differ but almost every society shares one thing- the concept of gender. Many believe that there are only two: man and woman. But in India, transgender men who cut off their genitals live as women and form a third gender. In Indonesia, hermaphrodite priests lead a society that recognizes five genders. And in rural Albania, women swap one gender for another to gain equality. Sometimes even the most conservative cultures must make room for those who challenge convention. But for many, embracing additional genders is still taboo.

“I was looking into the different interpretation and constructions of gender around the world. I try to travel to Indonesia every year and I like the interplay between the theory of gender and then what people are actually doing and how they are living,” Dr Davies says.

She says in most countries the government has a very clear idea about what gender is but this is often contradicted in real life.

“ Indonesians draw on their religion as a way to differ from what the government says. Also some traditional  religions believe in multi-gender Gods so there’s some tolerance for gender diversity.”

Dr Davies is an Associate Professor in Social Sciences at AUT and is one of only a handful of people in the world who has studied gender in Indonesia and speaks the language. Taboo aired in the US in April this year and is expected to be shown in New Zealand on the National Geographic channel before the end of this year.

Speaking, interpreting and translating the lingo

An AUT PHD graduate, senior lecturer in translation and interpretation and a self-confessed language nut has contributed two chapters to a book published by the Department of Internal Affairs.Dr Ineke Crezee, who speaks five languages fluently (Spanish, French, German, English, Dutch), wrote chapters on thedevelopment of the interpreting profession and interpreting and the New Zealand healthcare system for the book titled Interpreting in New Zealand – the pathway forward.The book was officially launched at AUT in October with AUT Chancellor Sir Paul Reeves and the Minister of Ethnic Affairs, Pansy Wong. The book is aimed at all those who work in the interpreting or translation industry, Dr Crezee says.“I drew on my experience as a translator and interpreter and also as a former nurse to write my chapters,” she says. Duncan Webb, one of New Zealand’s top specialists in Ethics, gave a keynote address at the launch on ‘Ethical Practice in Interpreting’ which was followed by a panel discussion on ethics. Earlier this year Dr Crezee graduated with a PHD from AUT. Her topic of applied language studies looked at possible first language reversion amongst older Dutch migrants in New Zealand. She is also a Council member of the NZ Society of Translators and Interpreters. AUT was the first tertiary institution to offer interpreting and translation courses and is the only university with a BA with an interpreting major. Next year Liaison Interpreting papers will be available online for the first time. The concept was trialled successfully with a group of Northland students earlier this year.

AUT student helping to save lost children
July 2009

Joseph Kony abducts children and forces them to fight in the Ugandan civil war. Have you heard of him? Probably not but one AUT student is working in New Zealand to make sure you do hear.

In 2007 Melody Cooper was in San Diego and volunteered for Invisible Children which aims to highlight the plight of the thousands of children abducted and forced to fight in Joseph Kony’s rebel army. After her time in America Melody returned home to study AUT’s Certificate in Conflict Resolution and is now the representative for Invisible Children in New Zealand.

“Part of the Conflict Resolution course is a war and peace section which was really relevant for me because of my interest in Invisible Children”.  Most recently Melody ran an overnight advocacy event in Auckland called the Rescue of Joseph Kony’s child soldiers and was joined by 100 other cities around the world on the same night in a global experiment to try to bring this conflict to an end.

“The good thing about this course is the broad range of topics it covers. There was a paper which focused on interpersonal conflict which was great for me as I spent a lot of time on the road working closely with other people and there’s so much I wouldn’t have known if I hadn’t done the course,” says Melody.

The organisation makes short films about the war in Uganda and what they’ve done so far to try and facilitate peace talks.  Melody and other volunteers like her in the world organize screenings of these films and fundraise for the cause. Melody has recently completed a three month tour around NZ and Australia where they screened Invisible Children films at 165 locations ranging from high schools to universities, churches to pubs. To contact Melody to book a screening, email her on melody.cooper@invisiblechildren.com. 

The non-profit organisation, which recently featured on Oprah, works to transform apathy into activism. By documenting the lives of those living in regions of conflict and injustice invisible to the world, it hopes to educate and inspire individuals in the West to use their unique voice for change. For more information about Invisible Children, visit www.invisiblechildren.com.

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Baljit Grewal – Doctoral Research Award
November 2008

Baljit Grewal, PhD student in the Department of Social Sciences at AUT University was recently awarded a BRCSS Doctoral Research award of $10,000.

The vision of the Building Research Capability in the Social Sciences (BRCSS) Network is to build research capability and collaborative research partnerships in the social sciences sector.

Baljit won this award against worthy competition from PhD students at other New Zealand Universities. The award is for the final 6 months of preparing his thesis for submission.

Baljit’s thesis is titled: Discourses of Knowledge Society in Asia Pacific

As a BRCSS-sponsored researcher Baljit becomes a member of the BRCSS Research College.

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Globalisation, Crime Control and First Nations: A Comparative Study of Canada and New Zealand
June 2008

Juan Tauri has been awarded an AUT PHD Scholarship to examine family group conferencing. He is concerned at the lack of attention given to indigenous perspectives on criminal justice.

The literature on indigenous perspectives and experiences of criminal justice, although growing, is sparse. It is hoped that his thesis will add to both the indigenous and criminological knowledge base, and inform the development of radical, indigenous theories and commentaries on the imported systems of justice that dominate neo-colonial jurisdictions.

The proposed research is significant because:

  1. by focusing on the transfer of family group conferencing from New Zealand to other jurisdictions, in particular Canada, the study will contest the hypothesis that currently dominates globalisation literature, that the transference of penal policy occurs predominantly from the ‘centre’ (namely, large western jurisdictions such as the USA and Great Britain), to the ‘periphery’ (smaller, less influential jurisdictions perceived as the ‘customers’ of the expanding penal industrial complex);
  2. through the focusing on the globalisation of family group conferencing and the effect this phenomenon is having on indigenous peoples, indigenous voices and perspectives will be inserted into debates about the nature and effect of the globalisation of crime control policy; a sub-discipline of criminology that has been described as a ‘peculiarly ethnocentric’ explanatory framework.

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The New Zealand World Internet Project New Zealand
Charles Crothers
August 2008

The Department of Social Sciences is assisting the ICDC in carrying out the World Internet Project New Zealand (WIP NZ) which is an extensive research project which aims to provide important information about the social, cultural, political and economic influence of the internet and related digital technologies.

ICDC’s longitudinal survey includes a cross-section of participants aged 12 and up across New Zealand. A quota ensures that people of Māori, Pasifika and Asian descent and the range of age-groups are not under-represented.

The survey investigates internet access and targets internet users as well as non-users; who uses this technology and what they do online. It also considers off-line activities such as how much time is spent with friends and family.

Other questions address issues such as:

  • the effects of the internet on language use and cultural development;
  • the role of the internet in accessing information or purchasing products;
  • and how the internet affects the educational and social development of New Zealand children.
In addition to studying the impact of the internet, the survey tracks the effectiveness of strategies to address issues such as the digital divide between rich and poor; urban and rural.

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Last updated: 21 Dec 2009 11:00am

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