Abstract:
Exploring sexuality can be full of possibility, discovery, and pleasure – yet can also be a site where gendered, cultural and racialized discourses coalesce in nuanced and complex ways. Alongside these complexities, new technological interfaces, such as social media and pornography, have imposed unique challenges for rangatahi (young people) learning about sex and relationships with implications for how they experience their sexuality. How then do rangatahi wāhine (Māori girls/young women) in rural Te Tai Tokerau (Northland), Aotearoa (New Zealand), develop their sexual subjectivities and initiate sexual relationships? I explore this question utilising a kaupapa Māori methodology – research that is done by Māori, for Māori and with Māori – utilising Māori approaches and practices. Thirty rangatahi were interviewed (12 rangatahi tāne and 18 rangatahi wāhine) in Te Tai Tokerau. Drawing upon thematic analysis, I outline contextual tensions evident in rangatahi wāhine narratives, informed by a settler-colonial context that has marginalised Māori ways of knowing and being. Rangatahi wāhine drew upon a range of strategies to mediate social pressures and expectations intersected by racism, (hetero)sexuality, misogyny and religious conservatism. However, while many of these challenges were surmountable for these rangatahi, with tricky but skilful manoeuvring, some contexts posed more substantive difficulty and were a source of considerable concern. Utilising a pūrākau approach, I explore rangatahi wāhine narratives of sexual violence, and compounding layers of social harm informed by a settler-colonial context that curtails Māori women’s collective self-determination. However, evident throughout all these challenges, is the agentic potential of rangatahi to seek out opportunities for social and interpersonal redress and healing, for themselves and their communities.
