This paper draws on 38 student interviews carried out in the course of the team research project "Teaching and Learning in the Supervision of Maori Doctoral Students". Maori doctoral thesis work takes place in the intersections between the Maori (tribal) world of identifications and obligations, the organisational and epistemological configurations of academia and the bureaucratic requirements of funding or employing bureaucracies. To explore how students accommodate cultural, academic and bureaucratic demands, we develop analytical tools combining three intellectual traditions: Maori educational theory, Bernstein's sociology of the academy and Lefebvre's conceptual trilogy of perceived, conceived and lived space. The paper falls into six parts. Section 1 is an overview of the research and is followed in Section 2 by identification of intersecting "locations" in which Maori students' theses are produced. In Section 3, Henri Lefebvre's spatial analysis highlights connections between students' multiple allegiances and affinities. Drawing on Bernstein, Section 4 relates the theses to the organisation of "Western" academic disciplines. Section 5 addresses students' cultural locations beyond the reach of "Western" disciplines. We conclude with implications for supervision. (Contains 2 figures and 9 notes.)