A story celebrating the traditional Polynesian sport of outrigger canoe racing, from the creators of the bestselling The Girls in the Kapa Haka. These are the crew of the waka, which race side-by-side at a heart-thumping, breath-taking pace. Their whanau have gathered along the shore - "Kia tere! Kia tere! Kia tere - give more!" The waka glides faster, the boys dig in deep. There will be no rest till this race is complete as they race in the waka ama. With a lovely singing text and vibrant illustrations, this timely story celebrates all aspects of this incredibly popular and fast-growing sport that is so special to Aotearoa.

Here are the best short stories and novel extracts from the Pikihuia Awards for Māori writers 2015 as judged by Witi Ihimaera, Sir Wira Gardiner and Poia Rewi. The book contains the stories from the finalists for Best Short Story written in English, Best Short Story written in Māori and Best Novel Extract. For more than ten years, the Māori Literature Trust and Huia Publishers have organised this biennial writing competition to promote Māori stories and writers. The awards and the publication of finalists’ stories have become popular as they celebrate Māori writing and uncover little-known writers.

Is thirty years of friendship worth risking for a chance at something more? Grant has asked himself that question everyday since his best friend, Corryn moved in and glimpses of what might be have taunted him. And with them both currently single, there's never been a better time to find out if Grant's long held feelings for Corryn were mutual. But if only it were that easy. Grant's life isn't straightforward as he struggles to balance his desire to be independent and the reality of his worsening MS. Relapses that were once infrequent and caused only a slight inconvenience now happen more often and it forces Grant to rely on others...friends, family and even work colleagues. But with Corryn at his side, Grant knows he could survive whatever his MS threw at him... Yet is it fair to expect Corryn to always be there?

In medieval Japan (14th–16th centuries), it was customary for elite families to entrust their young sons to the care of renowned Buddhist priests from whom they received a premier education in Buddhist scriptures, poetry, music, and dance. When the boys reached adolescence, some underwent coming-of-age rites, others entered the priesthood, and several extended their education, becoming chigo, or Buddhist acolytes. Chigo served their masters as personal attendants and as sexual partners. During religious ceremonies—adorned in colorful robes, their faces made up and hair styled in long ponytails—they entertained local donors and pilgrims with music and dance. Stories of acolytes (chigo monogatari) from the fourteenth to sixteenth centuries form the basis of the present volume, an original and detailed literary analysis of six tales coupled with a thorough examination of the sociopolitical, religious, and cultural matrices that produced these texts. Sachi Schmidt-Hori begins by delineating various dimensions of chigo (the chigo “title,” personal names, gender, sexuality, class, politics, and religiosity) to show the complexity of this cultural construct—the chigo as a triply liminal figure who is neither male nor female, child nor adult, human nor deity. A modern reception history of chigo monogatari follows, revealing, not surprisingly, that the tales have often been interpreted through cultural paradigms rooted in historical moments and worldviews far removed from the original. From the 1950s to 1980s, research on chigo was hindered by widespread homophobic prejudice. More recently, aversion to the age gap in historical master-acolyte relations has prevented scholars from analyzing the religious and political messages underlying the genre. Schmidt-Hori’s work calls for a shift in the hermeneutic strategies applied to chigo and chigo monogatari and puts forth both a nuanced historicization of social constructs such as gender, sexuality, age, and agency, and a mode of reading propelled by curiosity and introspection.

To understand and more creatively capture the social world, visual methods have increasingly become used by researchers in the social sciences and education. However, despite the rapid development of visual-based knowledge, and despite the obvious links between human movement and visual forms of understanding, visual research has been scarce in the fields of physical culture and physical education pedagogy. This groundbreaking book is the first to mark a "visual turn" in understanding and researching physical culture and pedagogies, offering innovative, image-based research that reveals key issues in the domains of sport, health, and physical education studies. Integrating visual research into physical culture and pedagogy studies, the book provides the reader with different ways of "seeing", looking at, and critically engaging with physical culture. Since human movement is increasingly created, established, and pedagogized beyond traditional educational sites such as schools, sport clubs, and fitness gyms, the book also explores the notion of visual pedagogy in wider physical culture, helping the reader to understand how visual-based technologies such as television, the internet, and mobile phones are central to people’s engagement with physical culture today. The book demonstrates how the visual creates dynamic pedagogical tools for revealing playful forms of embodiment, and offers the reader a range of visual methods, from researcher-produced photo analysis to participatory-centred visual approaches, that will enhance their own study of physical culture. Pedagogies, Physical Culture and Visual Methods is important reading for all advanced students and researchers with an interest in human movement, physical education, physical culture, sport studies, and research methods in education.

Quechua Expressions of Stance and Deixis explores the semantics and pragmatics of Southern Quechua and Ecuadorian Quichua expressions, considered as markers of stance and deixis. This volume is the first to study a broad range of stance/deictic phenomena in Peruvian and Bolivian Quechua and Ecuadorian Quichua in-depth, with examples that have been elicited as well as captured from natural discourse. Each chapter investigates these expressions through fieldwork and experimental studies, many employing original methodologies. As such, this work stands as an important contribution to the study of an endangered language.