Narratives of holistic mental health recovery in New Zealand Defence Force personnel.

Research on military mental health recovery has tended to focus on therapy outcomes while backgrounding the role of diverse healing influences. The New Zealand Defence Force (NZDF) is a bicultural military integrated with Maori customs and cultural perspectives on holistic health and wellbeing. This study used narrative analysis to examine the semi-structured interviews of 21 active duty NZDF personnel who had accessed mental healthcare to understand what factors contributed to their return to wellness. Narratives described an orientation toward recovery as a process, where many interrelated wellbeing and social factors together supported the return to health. Culturally available Maori wellbeing metaphors were adopted as heuristics by service members in their storying of growth and healing. Findings are considered in terms of how wellbeing and recovery are conceptualized and promoted within militaries with diverse cultures. Discussion focuses on how narratives within military institutions can promote resilience and support service member recovery from mental distress.

Relational ethics meets principled practice in community research engagements to understand and address homelessness.

Growing homelessness in Aotearoa New Zealand stems primarily from rising inequalities and poverty. Drawing from scholarship on relational ethics, principled practice and Maori cultural concepts, this paper offers our reflections on nearly two decades of collective work to document and address homelessness. Central to the approach outlined are enduring community partnerships, the cultivation of reciprocal relations, and time spent with homeless people and those trying to work with them. We present exemplars for how we draw on everyday interactions with homeless people and agency staff to enhance local service and broader systemic responses to homelessness.

Home as a hybrid centre of medication practice.

This article presents research that explores how medications are understood and used by people in everyday life. An intensive process of data collection from 55 households was used in this research, which included photo-elicitation and diary-elicitation interviews. It is argued that households are at the very centre of complex networks of therapeutic advice and practice and can usefully be seen as hybrid centres of medication practice, where a plethora of available medications is assimilated and different forms of knowledge and expertise are made sense of. Dominant therapeutic frameworks are tactically manipulated in households in order for medication practices to align with the understandings, resources and practicalities of households. Understanding the home as a centre of medication practice decentralises the role of health advisors (whether mainstream or alternative) in wellness practices.

Continuities and discontinuities in the cultural evolution of global consciousness.

Global consciousness (GC), encompassing cosmopolitan orientation, global orientations (i.e. openness to multicultural experiences) and identification with all humanity, is a relatively stable individual difference that is strongly associated with pro-environmental attitudes and behaviours, less ingroup favouritism and prejudice, and greater pandemic prevention safety behaviours. Little is known about how it is socialized in everyday life. Using stratified samples from six societies, socializing institution factors correlating positively with GC were education, white collar work (and its higher income) and religiosity. However, GC also decreased with increasing age, contradicting a 'wisdom of elders' transmission of social learning, and not replicating typical findings that general prosociality increases with age. Longitudinal findings were that empathy-building, network-enhancing elements like getting married or welcoming a new infant, increased GC the most across a three-month interval. Instrumental gains like receiving a promotion (or getting a better job) also showed positive effects. Less intuitively, death of a close-other enhanced rather than reduced GC. Perhaps this was achieved through the ritualized management of meaning where a sense of the smallness of self is associated with growth of empathy for the human condition, as a more discontinuous or opportunistic form of culture-based learning. This article is part of the theme issue 'Evolution and sustainability: gathering the strands for an Anthropocene synthesis'.

A Kaupapa Maori conceptualization and efforts to address the needs of the growing precariat in Aotearoa New Zealand: A situated focus on Maori.

In Aotearoa New Zealand, the precariat is populated by at least one in six New Zealanders, with Maori (Indigenous peoples) being over-represented within this emerging social class. For Maori, this socio-economic positioning reflects a colonial legacy spanning 150 years of economic and cultural subjugation, and intergenerational experiences of material, cultural and psychological insecurities. Relating our Kaupapa Maori approach (Maori cultural values and principles underlining research initiatives) to the precariat, this article also draws insights from existing scholarship on social class in psychology and Assemblage Theory in the social sciences to extend present conceptualizations of the Maori precariat. In keeping with the praxis orientation central to our approach, we consider three exemplars of how our research into Maori precarity is mobilized in efforts to inform public deliberations and government policies regarding poverty reduction, humanizing the welfare system and promoting decent work. Note: Aotearoa New Zealand has been popularized within the everyday lexicon of New Zealanders as a political statement of Indigenous rights for Maori.

Reciprocal relations between cardiovascular disease, employment, financial insecurity, and post cardiac event recovery among Maori men: a case series.

BACKGROUND: Disparities in cardiovascular outcomes between Maori and non-Maori persist despite technological advances in the treatment of cardiovascular disease and improved service provision. Little is known about how social determinants of health, such as income [in]security affect Maori men's access, treatment, and recovery from cardiovascular disease. This paper explores the contexts within which cardiovascular disease is experienced and healthcare becomes embedded. METHODS: This study utilized a case-comparative narrative approach to document and make sense of the patient experiences of four male Maori patients who, in the previous 6 months, had come through cardiac investigation and treatment at Waikato Hospital, a large tertiary cardiac center in New Zealand. Participant accounts were elicited using a culturally patterned narrative approach to case development, informed by Kaupapa Maori Research practices. It involved three repeat 1-3-hour interviews recorded with participants (12 interviews); the first interviews took place 5-16 weeks after surgery/discharge. RESULTS: Each of the four case studies firstly details a serious cardiac event(s) before describing the varying levels of financial worry they experienced. Major financial disruptions to their lives were at the forefront of the concerns of those facing financial insecurity-as opposed to their medical problems. Financial hardship within the context of an unresponsive welfare system impacted the access to care and access to funding contributed to psychological distress for several participants. Economic security and reciprocal relationships between employers and employees facilitated positive treatment experiences and recovery. CONCLUSION: Findings suggest that although multiple factors influence participant experiences and treatment outcomes, financial [in]security, and personal income is a key determinant. The heterogeneity in participant narratives suggests that although general inequities in health may exist for Maori as a population group, these inequities do not appear to be uniform. We postulate diverse mechanisms, by which financial insecurity may adversely affect outcomes from treatment and demonstrate financial security as a significant determinant in allowing patients to respond to and recover from cardiovascular disease more effectively.

Behavioral evidence for global consciousness transcending national parochialism.

While national parochialism is commonplace, individual differences explain more variance in it than cross-national differences. Global consciousness (GC), a multi-dimensional concept that includes identification with all humanity, cosmopolitan orientation, and global orientation, transcends national parochialism. Across six societies (N = 11,163), most notably the USA and China, individuals high in GC were more generous allocating funds to the other in a dictator game, cooperated more in a one-shot prisoner's dilemma, and differentiated less between the ingroup and outgroup on these actions. They gave more to the world and kept less for the self in a multi-level public goods dilemma. GC profiles showed 80% test-retest stability over 8 months. Implications of GC for cultural evolution in the face of trans-border problems are discussed.

Pandemic or Not, Worker Subjective Wellbeing Pivots About the Living Wage Point: A Replication, Extension, and Policy Challenge in Aotearoa New Zealand.

Recent pre-pandemic research suggests that living wages can be pivotal for enhancing employee attitudes and subjective wellbeing. This article explores whether or not the present COVID-19 pandemic is impacting pivotal links between living wages and employee attitudes and subjective wellbeing, with replication indicating robustness. Twin cohorts each of 1,000 low-waged workers across New Zealand (NZ), one pre- (2018), and one present-pandemic (2020) were sample surveyed on hourly wage, job attitudes, and subjective wellbeing as linked to changes in the world of work associated with the pandemic (e.g., job security, stress, anxiety, depression, and holistic wellbeing). Using locally estimated scatter-point smoothing, job attitudes and subjective wellbeing scores tended to pivot upward at the living wage level in NZ. These findings replicate earlier findings and extend these into considering subjective wellbeing in the context of a crisis for employee livelihoods and lives more generally. Convergence across multiple measures, constructs, and contexts, suggests the positive impacts of living wages are durable. We draw inspiration from systems dynamics to argue that the present government policy of raising legal minimum wages (as NZ has done) may not protect subjective wellbeing until wages cross the living wage Rubicon. Future research should address this challenge.

Deliberating Upon the Living Wage to Alleviate In-Work Poverty: A Rhetorical Inquiry Into Key Stakeholder Accounts.

Most developed nations have a statutory minimum wage set at levels insufficient to alleviate poverty. Increased calls for a living wage have generated considerable public controversy. This article draws on 25 interviews and four focus groups with employers, low-pay industry representatives, representatives of chambers of commerce, pay consultants, and unions. The core focus is on how participants use prominent narrative tropes for the living wage and against the living wage to argue their respective perspectives. We also document how both affirmative and negative tropes are often combined by participants to craft their own rhetorical positions on the issue.

The mobile hermit and the city: considering links between places, objects, and identities in social psychological research on homelessness.

This article explores aspects of a homeless man's everyday life and his use of material objects to maintain a sense of place in the city. We are interested in the complex functions of walking, listening and reading as social practices central to how this man forges a life as a mobile hermit across physical and imagined locales. This highlights connections between physical place, use of material objects, imagination, and sense of self. Our analysis illustrates the value of paying attention to geographical locations and objects in social psychological research on homelessness.

What does it mean to be a man today?: bloke culture and the media.

Psychologists have paid scant attention to the positive relationships and community contributions of working class men who are not in trouble, and have focused instead on men who are 'in trouble.' In addressing this oversight, we draw on insights from ethnographic observations, life narrative interviews, photographic techniques and media items, which have been compiled by 12 working class men from a shared community of practice in New Zealand. We illustrate how these men often appropriate aspects from contemporary media deliberations regarding what it means to be a man today in order to make sense of their own lives. The implications of participants' emphasis on friendship, support, familial obligations, and community participation are discussed in relation to the place of working class men in society.

Questioning 'black humour': racial exploitation, media and health.

This commentary explores the relevance of media racism to health psychology. While supporting Dr Estacio's call for health psychologists to get involved in promoting social justice via the media, we propose that health psychologists should not overstate the negative influence of the media on racism in society. Media content is complex and contradictory. It contains both racist and anti-racist representations. Challenging racism requires a conceptualization of links between the representational spaces provided by the media and the everyday geographic places within which inter-personal interactions and exploitation occur.

Constructing health news: possibilities for a civic-oriented journalism.

Health is a very prominent news category. However, we know little about the production processes of journalists leading to the health stories we encounter on a daily basis. Such knowledge is crucial for ensuring a vibrant public sphere for health. This article draws on interviews with eight health journalists in New Zealand to document what they consider to constitute a health story, their professional norms and practices, their perceptions of audiences, and the need for increased civic deliberations regarding health. Journalists privilege biomedical stories involving lifestyle and individual responsibility, and have limited frames for presenting stories that involve socio-political concerns. Stories are strongly shaped by journalists' considerations of their target audience, the sources they draw on, their professional norms, and institutional practices. This results in the omission of stories that have relevance for minority and disadvantaged groups and limits the nature of the stories told to ones that reflect the views of the majority. However, journalists are also reflective about these issues and receptive to ways to overcome them. This raises possibilities for health researchers to engage with journalists in order to repoliticise health and promote a more civic-oriented form of health journalism.

Men's re-placement: Social practices in a Men's Shed.

Transitions into retirement can be difficult at the best of times. Many men find themselves having to reflect on who they are and what their lives are about. Their access to social supports and material resources are often disrupted. Men's Sheds offer a space where retired men can actively pursue wellbeing, and respond to disruption and loneliness through emplaced community practices. This paper draws on ethnographic research in a Men's Shed in Auckland, New Zealand in order to explore the social practices through which men create a shared space for themselves in which they can engage in meaningful relationships with each other. We document how participants work in concert to create a space in which they can be together through collective labour. Their emplacement in the shed affords opportunities for supported transitions into retirement and for engaging healthy lives beyond paid employment.

Nutritionism and the construction of 'poor choices' in families facing food insecurity.

The dominant research approach to both food insecurity and charitable meal provision is nutritionistic, deficit-orientated and ignores wider socio-economic issues. This reinforces existing power dynamics and overlooks the agency of people living food-insecure lives. We critique this dominant approach and draw on the everyday experiences of families facing food insecurity to ground an alternative approach that emphasises food as a social determinant of health.

Health inequalities and homelessness: considering material, spatial and relational dimensions.

Homelessness is a pressing health concern involving material hardship, social marginalization and restrained relationships between homeless and housed people. This article links relational aspects of homelessness, and its health consequences, with material and spatial considerations through the use of photo-elicitation interviews with 12 rough sleepers in London. We highlight the relevance of embodied deprivation for a health psychology that is responsive to the ways in which social inequalities can get under the skin of homeless people and manifest as health disparities.

Health and digital gaming: the benefits of a community of practice.

Psychologists have a tendency to focus on the negative side of life. Our discipline has become preoccupied with illness rather than health. Where the media are concerned we explore the consequences of unhealthy messages for the population in general or young people in particular. This commentary breaks with tradition by outlining ways in which digital games can enhance health. Positive health consequences of gaming are explored in relation to surgical training and therapeutic interventions, physical exercise, health education and community participation.

Developing a critical media research agenda for health psychology.

This article outlines reasons why psychologists should concern themselves with media processes, noting how media are central to contemporary life and heavily implicated in the construction of shared understandings of health. We contend that the present research focus is substantially medicalized, privileging the investigation and framing of certain topics, such as the portrayal of health professionals, medical practices, specific diseases and lifestyle-orientated interventions, and restricting attention to social determinants of health as appropriate topics for investigation. We propose an extended agenda for media health research to include structural health concerns, such as crime, poverty, homelessness and housing and social capital.

Mediation and the construction of contemporary understandings of health and lifestyle.

The practice of using media to promote the benefits of diet and exercise has been associated with the rise in prominence of a sense of personal obligation for one's own health. This article contributes to recent critiques of the emphasis being placed on individual responsibility for health. We argue that if health psychologists are to develop an adequately social understanding of our role in promoting health, then we must begin to examine the influence of our practices and agendas on public understandings. Extracts from research accounts are used to illustrate the pervasiveness of media health messages in everyday life and the prominence of a sense of individual responsibility.

Being healthy in unhealthy places: health tactics in a homeless lifeworld.

Street life can compromise a person's health. In response, homeless people exert considerable agency in attempts to preserve their health. Drawing on ethnographic research in central Auckland, this article explores the ways in which a homeless man maintains his health. We consider the tactics Clinton develops to maintain his health and to gain respite while living on the streets, an unhealthy place. Of particular note are the ways in which he works to transform a 'landscape of despair' into a 'landscape of care'. The case of Clinton foregrounds the fundamentally emplaced and relational nature of homeless peoples' health.