Focus groups conducted in two urban areas in New Zealand explored perceptions of natural hazards and disaster preparedness. The groups were structured by socio‐economic status, gender, age, and cultural background. Participants were generally aware of likely major hazard events but few maintained emergency kits or had prepared emergency plans. People held an optimistic attitude, believing they could cope with disaster. Differences amongst the groups included the inability of lower socio‐economic groups to afford emergency kits or insurance and evidence of strong supportive networking among Maori and Samoan groups.

Farm children's experience with animals is changing. Farm animal welfare is promoted, pest control still occurs but is less visible than in the past, and environmental messages are pervasive. Differences between farm and urban children's experiences are less distinct than in the past. This article contributes to our understanding of change by studying autobiographies written by farm people since 1990 and provides a baseline of farm children's human-animal relationships to compare with contemporary experiences. Although less focused than interviews with elderly people, the autobiographies provide a holistic view of where animals fit with farm children's other concerns. Farming income in the first half of the twentieth century was often low and the pressure this put on people and animals was evident. A hierarchy of relationships from bonding with pets to domination of production animals and pests was strongly established with children showing gendered responses to many aspects of farm life. The intertwined themes of family and pioneering appear to have shaped what people remembered and what they wished to draw attention to in their books -the nature of autobiographical memory is discussed to assist in interpretation of the data.

The proportion of work which is casual, part-time, self-employed or in some way insecure has increased during the 1980 s. Paid work carried out at home comes into many of these categories, and has been receiving attention because of the prevalence of low pay among home workers for the last 100 years. As consumer tastes change the actual work has changed, for example from making artificial flowers for hats to word processing. Allen and Wolkowitz (1987: 57) have argued that regardless of the task, working at home creates a situation where workers are vulnerable to exploitation. Contributing to this situation is the fact that they are isolated from other workers and may have taken this type of work because they have limited access to the job market.

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Campbell, Hugh (2020) Farming Inside Invisible Worlds: Modernist Agriculture and its Consequences