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Papers by Neill Ballantyne

We use the abbreviation LGBTAQ in this report to refer to the sample of students who identified a... more We use the abbreviation LGBTAQ in this report to refer to the sample of students who identified as lesbian/gay (or takatāpui), bisexual (or pansexual), trans, asexual, questioning, and/or queer*. These labels and this grouping are not necessarily comprehensive but they are a group of people with diverse sexual orientations and/or gender identities who share common experiences of being discriminated against for not being heterosexual (straight) or for being non-normative in their gender identity. In this report we to refer to individuals who identified as heterosexual and a binary gender by the abbreviation HAABG. No respondents to this survey identified as intersex and so we do not include an 'I' in the abbreviation in describing our specific findings, but we acknowledge that intersex individuals may share some of the experiences reported by our LGBTAQ respondents as well as facing specific challenges. We use the term trans to include people who identify as transgender, transsexual, or similar, including people who have a history of gender transition and/or trans experiences. We use the term queer* to highlight an inclusive and positive meaning of this reclaimed word. * " 'Queer' is a term used to describe the many variations of sexual attraction and sex/gender identity, including intersex, transgender, transsexual, genderqueer, asexual, fa'afafine, takatapui, lesbian, bisexual and gay. Although it may not be the preferred term for everyone, it is used to challenge binary representations of sexuality, sex, and gender." (Otago University Students' Association, n.d.) We acknowledge that this campus climate survey follows on from the work of Toni Woods (Unitec Institute of Technology, Auckland) and Susan Rankin (The Pennsylvania State University, US). We thank them for making their survey questions and findings available. We thank Otago University Students' Association for supporting the research. We also thank all of the students who completed the survey. Cover image adapted from a photograph by Mr Bungle; used under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 Generic license.

This is a collaborative research project where I worked alongside the Tonga Leitis’ Association t... more This is a collaborative research project where I worked alongside the Tonga Leitis’ Association to conduct semi-structure interviews with 20 leiti into the causes of, and solutions to housing insecurity. I set out to follow a PAR (participatory action research) methodology but was constrained in fully implementing this due to constraints of the project timeline. This project draws on the principles of PAR as well as other indigenous research theories. This project contributes to the academy’s understanding of the life and challenges experienced by leiti. It shows that housing insecurity cannot be viewed in isolation but is influenced by many aspects of people’s lives. This is especially true for ‘vulnerable’ minorities such as leiti. This project revealed that leiti experience marginalisation in many ways and showed that they are often survivors of significant levels of violence. This study includes a range of recommendations which are driven from the participant interviews. These a...