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Much has been written about families and their influence on relationships and research in fieldwork. However, seldom has the absence of family in the field received analytical attention. The authors of this paper contribute to an emerging ‘anthropology of absence’ in a number of ways: We direct the focus of absence away from our participants to reflect on our own child/ren’s absences in the field; we attend to the absence of individual persons whereas most work in this field to date focuses on material objects and ethnic groups; we argue that the embodied traces felt in our child/ren's absence make mother-child relationships unique to other unaccompanied fieldwork experiences; we illustrate the relational and contingent character of absence as absence/presence; we examine the agency of our child/ren’s absence on the process and product of our fieldwork research; and we reflect on how our child/ren’s absence/presence in the field alters our subjectivities as mother-researchers.

Background: Increasingly, pregnant women in Aotearoa/New Zealand (Aotearoa) are unable to achieve the dietary intakes recommended by the Ministry of Health (MOH). While health professionals express frustration at "being the ambulance at the bottom of the cliff", the continued government response to this public health concern is to "educate women", as per the current mantra of personal responsibility and choice-based rhetoric. Aim: Using critical discourse analysis (CDA), this study examined the discourses regarding nutrition in pregnant women in Aotearoa. Pregnant women's nutrition is further considered within the contexts of food security and empowerment. Method: In July 2017, using 30 documents from three different platforms-media, government and academia-with a focus on Aotearoa, the first author undertook a CDA. Findings: Three key messages were identified: firstly, pregnant women, in not being viewed holistically or relationally, are isolated as being solely responsible for nutrition; secondly, women are positioned as naïve recipients, and achieving a healthy pregnancy requires women to be educated and to adhere to complex food guidelines; and lastly, there is an authoritarian use of fear and monitoring to motivate adherence to guidelines. Thus, women are personally responsible for achieving complex, unrealistic and often unaffordable nutritional targets. Conclusion: The most dominant discourse is one whereby malnutrition is seen as deficit behaviour and thinking by women, and one of self-responsibility, regardless of context. This is very much in keeping with the modus operandi of public health and neo-liberal discourse. We argue, however, this renders silent the fact that malnutrition for some women results more from food insecurity and disempowerment. Midwives need to make audible other less dominant narratives, alongside advocating for woman-centred, policy-based approaches towards nutrition, whereby the underlying drivers of poverty are actively addressed.

Indigenous worldviews and scholarship are underrepresented and underdeveloped in sport for development and wider sport management spaces. Given many sport for social change initiatives target Indigenous populations, this is concerning. By adopting a Kaupapa Māori approach, a strengths-based stance, and working together with two plus-sport and sport-plus cases from provincial and national New Zealand rugby settings: the Taranaki Rugby Football Union’s and Feats’ Pae Tawhiti (seek distant horizons) Māori and Pasifika Rugby Academy and the E Tū Toa (stand strong), hei tū he rangatira (become a leader) Māori Rugby Development camps, the authors provide an illustration of Indigenous theory–practice. They argue sport for social change practices that focus on Indigenous peoples would be greatly improved if underpinned by the principles of perspective, privilege, politics, protection, and people. Thus, any sport for social change praxis seeking to partner with Indigenous communities ought to be informed by Indigenous philosophical viewpoints.