Formulación de Bioactivos.

The main challenge for my current research was capturing practices and meanings that happen during a movanner’s journey. This is a community that has no fixed

institutions from which to observe, no workplaces, no shops, no schools, no physical facilities. Their own living space, the vans, and the temporary facilities they created were my only sites and these by nature, are extremely intimate and highly personal spaces. It was only through the close relationship developed with my key informant, Barb, that I was invited to journey with her and so invade this intimate ‘place’. I needed such an informant because although I am a member of the NZMCA, I am not a member of the Freewheelers as I am not single, and more pertinently my travelling ability is limited because I do not own a van.

Previously I had conducted fieldwork at destination points where senior movanners gather or conducted interviews at their houses. I had hired vans to attend rallies and to journey around the North Island. Now, armed with greater knowledge of their community-making at destination sites, I wanted to observe the journey itself.

Although I would not be a true insider, my interactions with other movanners would be facilitated by being a member of the association as my husband and I now had an identifying number and could display the wings insignia which are both symbols of inclusion that other members recognised and trusted. Membership also gave us

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access to important information regarding sites to stop at, rules and regulations for both national and regional parks, connections with other movanners, information about upcoming rallies and the Travel Directory. This information is on-going and topical.

33.4.1INTERVIEWS AND ‘CONVERSATIONS’

I did 10 semi-structured interviews, each of two hours duration in 2010, using an interview form I designed with a wide variety of questions ranging from details about the types of motorhome they drove, their camping and boating history, their

relationships with neighbours and family, what they thought of the costs of motorhoming compared to the costs of their houses, duration of journeys, pets, division of chores at home and on the road, socialising at home and on the road, problems encountered, safety issues, physical activities and personal outcomes. Some interviews were with full-timers conducted in their vans, some with part timers

conducted in their houses or their vans, some with full-timers house-sitting in someone else’s home, some at rallies, POP’s13 and camping grounds. I interviewed

couples, singles and groups, sometimes with other family members who were not mobile. These interviews were helpful in that I amassed specific information about movanning in New Zealand and began to get “a feel” about movanners and their

lifestyle and I got to know more than 20 movanners reasonably well. They gave me the names of others who they thought could help me, who I otherwise would not have met, especially full-timers who have no fixed abode. During these interviews I heard many movanning stories, gained general movanning knowledge that I lacked and started to see emerging patterns for specific research.

I used some of the data for my research project on community making and successful ageing in 2010. In 2011 and 2012 I conducted more semi-structured interviews and during those years engaged in numerous ‘conversations’ with senior movanners as I

13 _{Park over Property. Members of the NZMCA allow fellow members to stay on their properties}

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encountered them on my own journeys or ‘parked up’ in my neighbourhood. The initial data collected and analysed from the interview forms enabled me to have more authentic interactions and conversations with movanners because I had basic

knowledge. I knew, for example, I could approach senior movanners parked around my local neighbourhood if their door was open as this is a sign they do not mind being disturbed. I initiated many conversations over the last three years in this way, as I also knew they would almost certainly have time for a chat.

33.4.2AUTO ETHNOGRAPHY

In 2010 I visited an Auckland Regional Rally at Shakespear Bay and spent a few hours being shown around and chatting with participants. Based on this initial rally

experience I hired a van so I could participate fully in a weekend rally held by the Northland Regional Association at Bland Bay. This van displayed the ‘Wings’ of the NZMCA; driving it I experienced the constant waves of other movanners I passed on the road and first felt the sense of belonging to a community, hidden from other road users. The red ‘Wings’ served as an identifier that other travelling members easily recognised from a distance in speeding traffic to enable acknowledgement, a strategy similar to that of traditional nomadic clans in a desert environment (Oliver 2003:33). My husband and I participated fully in this rally, parking our van where directed by the Rally Marshall,14 wearing the yellow “first time at a rally” badges, bringing our chairs

and cups of tea to the communal morning tea in the marquee and having to correctly repeat our association number (39652) as ‘newbies’ as we introduced ourselves, which was acknowledged with appreciative clapping. We attended Happy Hour at around 4pm, bringing along our chairs, drinks and nibbles to the marquee where we met many more movanners both couples and singles and heard stories of their travels especially their trips to the South Island. The next morning we attended the communal morning tea and helped pull down the marquee.

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During the rally the weather was good so people were outside their vans where most of the interactions between movanners take place. They almost always delineate between the interior and exterior of their vans (Counts and Counts 2001:187) and most

hospitality takes place in the area immediately outside the door of the van where tables, chairs and sometimes pot plants are set out, usually under an awning. The inside of a van is somewhere you have to be specifically invited into, whereas this outside area is a place anyone can stop for a chat without invitation, while the possibility of friendship is explored (Green 2010:65, Counts and Counts 2001:187). One of the reasons I wanted to attend a rally was because many of my informants had told me they had never been to one. They had formed ideas about them being too structured and organised where “everyone parks in a row” as one of my informants put it. As if to reflect empirically what I had previously been told, many of the people

actually attending that rally at Bland Bay also insisted “they didn’t go to rallies” and this was “just their second or third rally” and that they had only attended because of the beautiful location. The negative discourse of being organised, parking in close proximity to many other movanners and having set times for morning tea and Happy Hour is one that resonates with some senior movanners but in fact was successfully overcome by having most of the day to ourselves, being able to shut our van door when privacy was required and choosing whether or not to participate in planned events. The rally was certainly a social event but also of short duration and we had plenty of free time to do whatever we chose and were in fact one of the last vans to leave on Sunday afternoon.

I hired this van again for a trip up north and twice hired a Kea Rental van for trips to Northland and the Coromandel Peninsula. On all trips I travelled with my husband and we took turns driving the vans. They were surprisingly easy to handle but it was not easy pulling over to let traffic pass as New Zealand road shoulders are rough and sloping and often the vehicle immediately behind does not take the offered

opportunity to pass. In compliance with the often repeated value of the NZMCA I never let traffic build up behind me but to achieve this I often had to pull off the road and come to a complete stop. Over the course of our trips we gained basic knowledge in the technology of the vans, water conservation, emptying grey and black water

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cassettes, finding TV reception, parking in sheltered positions, recognizing the

symbols along the road that could help us, using the Travel Directory beneficially, and feeling an unexpected sense of vulnerability the first time we freedom camped by the side of a road.

This was at a POP in Northland that I had decided would be a good time/place to stop on our journey home after spending a full day travelling from Matauri Bay and visiting friends in Russell. All the information I needed was in my NZMCA Travel Directory so I phoned ahead and asked permission to stop there. The owner immediately agreed and when we arrived we showed our NZMCA card and he pointed to where we could park for the night. It was very close to the road and as night fell, it felt strange cooking, eating and preparing for bed while a few metres away cars were going past. I have previously looked at the social structure of the POP’s and how hosting and guesting etiquette (guided by the rules suggested by the NZMCA) is enacted to form community at a temporary site, but actually staying in one myself did not quite live up to some of the stories I had previously heard from my movanning informants. Perhaps only the best stories are retold to researchers. We didn’t see the owner again, let alone have him arrive with a basket of muffins, and had a rather fitful sleep as cars passed until the early hours of the morning. However, it was a safe and free haven, which we only knew about because of our NZMCA member’s Travel Directory. The POP was not apparent to other motorists.

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