Say our beautiful names: A Māori indigene's autoethnography of women-self-mother

Abstract

This thesis commenced as a study of cultural identity and connectedness and the associations with women’s and mothers’ mental health and wellbeing. I had gathered whānau stories of my and our experiences of being women, mothers and family. Among the whānau narratives were gaps about who we were as a humble people, disconnected from our past, reflecting an historical silence. Indigenous autoethnography emerged as an academic methodology to broker the gaps and silences in understanding the collective of us whānau women through the generations and across a colonised landscape. Autoethnography is a perfomance methodology and I triangulated this with the narratives of women participants, twenty in all and, grounded the research processes with a kaupapa Māori approach. Kaupapa Māori signals the intersections with whiteness and hegemony and at these points of convergence are cultural signposts, calling to us to heed ancestral values and the indigenous spirit of where we came from in illuminating the way ahead. The women’s narratives tendered complexities and layers, fresh and uncluttered stories of transitions and transformations through hardships, leadership, tenacity and courage. The main research findings evidenced a group of us, women and whānau, locked in transgenerational trauma, abuse and disadvantage; in the place of cultural values and cultural knowledge lurked multiple forms of violence and subjugation. Even when women emerged from the margins, for the next generation, the margins were familiar places. When women were honoured by their families, they grew in self-assurrance, assumed leadership in whānau and steered their families towards meaningful and full existences. Although the research implications are not prescriptive, the research gives deeper understandings of the multiplicites of women’s and mothers’ lived experiences and, the need for health and social intiatives to develop innovative partnerships with whānau. Women are drawn to systems and processes that honour them, calling out their status as integral members of society and creation itself; women are creation.