MAORI200 WEEK 2

Mini lecture cover;

  • what does mana wahine mean? - From perspective of lecturer

    • positionally, how we locate/position ourselves

    • living in a mana wahine way

      - mana wahine theory;

      • ancestral connections / ancestral territories

      • strength of tupuna and their key roles of protection of te ao maori

      • leading those grassroots developments, regeneration and resurgence movements for Maori

      • ancestral knowledge and practices

      • being able to stand proudly of generations yet to come and gone of iwi Maori

      • Irwin, 1992;1

      • the need to develop a range of theories that work under an umbrella system (Kaupapa Maori theories)

      • how we come to know the world and our relationships, including ourselves

      • the power of resistance to colonisation to protect, defend and acclaim mana for all

      • external and internal complexity

        • external - direct challenge to colonialism

        • internal - direct challenge to movements i.e. feminism that continue to affirm privilege

      • intersection of race, class and gender, oppression

      • provides an umbrella framework for other ideologies

      • te kotahitanga - the rule of maori women in that movement, proceeded the suffrage movement

  • actively honour our tupuna, past present mana wahine

  • challenging colonial systems that seek to deny mana wahine then and now

  • challenging the crown, challenging our own

  • tupuna wahine e.g. wairaka

  • coming up against structures of colonial ideologies

  • mana wahine theory provides us with a culturally defined bases which challenges us to push back on the making invisible of maori woman’s knowledge

  • there is no grounds to say maori woman have none or less mana (in the context of colonisation)

    • mana wahine allows us to speak back on this to challenge the ways maori woman are represented and constructed in society

  • Me aro koe ki te ha o hineahuone - pay heed to the dignity of Wahine Maori

  • Hongi - relationship of ha

  • decolonising of generalised stories of iwi Maori

  • in the essence of these stories, the motion of mana is embedded in whakapapa

  • life force, mana, ha are all interconnected

  • vital role of maori women in the creation of who we are now

  • we affirm such things through our pepeha

  • whakapapa is not genealogy, colonial tidy nuclear family model

    • complex relationships

    • whakapapa experts

  • who are our allies within this theory? Maori men getting their act together as well as Maori women getting their act together

  • must be able to rely on one another, everyone engaged in this process of this work

  • assertion of mana wahine is the assertion of all

  • gendering in english vs maori

    • creates a gendered power

  • decolonising our own thinking and assumptions

    Lecture two: Mana Wahine Theory

  • A theoretical framework that provides analysis drawing upon Maori knowledge and in particular with a decolonizing intention in regard to the position and voice of Maori

  • Western feminisms have been dominant in the explanation and analysis of gender relations in this country

  • for Maori women, there has been a movement away from Pakeha/western feminisms to a reclamation of Maori womens theories

  • mana wahine stands irrespective, and often in spite of the existence of western feminists frameworks

  • Western feminisms have denied the existence of ‘others’ and have tended to serve the interest of white women

  • The label Maori feminism is problematic for many maori women

    • Feminism has often mirrored their experiences of wider pakeha society, where maori ideas and concepts have been marginalised and denied and maori women’s voices have been silenced

  • representation and definitions of maori women have been, in many instances, historically constituted through the voices of the coloniser

  • maori women have been defined, painted, filmed, researched, imaged within dominant pakeha frameworks and assumptions

  • Ngahuia Te Awekotuku

  • Maori women’s work focused in the maori community so few joined the feminist movement

  • feminism can be defined by maori women to be what they want it to be, related to our own experiences and definitions of how we describe and analyse our oppression as indigenous women in the world

  • Ripeka evans

  • founded in maori philosophies and values

  • theory is identified as a tool that maori women can use actively to explain and debate with the world

  • Katherine Irwin

  • mana wahine is an assertion of our intrinsic mana as descendents of our ancestors, as holders and maintainers of knowledge

  • ‘mana wahine is not reactionary, it is not a response or reaction to male violence against us, but a process whereby Maori women are able to be pro-active in determining our future’ - Ngahuia Te Awekotuku

  • inherently political

  • real difference between pakeha feminism and maori feminism

Tutorial 1) Wednesday