A project looking at how Māori families have strived for whānau ora (whānau wellbeing) across the 20th century has won
$622,000 in Marsden funding.
University of Auckland historian, Dr Aroha Harris, and independent historian and University alumna, Dr Melissa Williams,
will research how Māori whānau have negotiated with, pushed against, and pressed beyond state interventions to maintain
whānau wellbeing.
“National histories identify twentieth century Māori poverty, abuse, and tribal breakdown as the outcomes of
colonisation,” say Drs Harris and Williams.
Yet the experiences of Māori whānau are often absent in these narratives, they say.
“Throughout the 20th century Māori families experienced high levels of state intervention, disempowerment and
estrangement, a result of welfare policies critical of whānau structures that differed from the Pākehā nuclear family.”
In this Marsden-funded project, Dr Williams and Dr Harris, who is a senior lecturer in the Faculty of Arts and a member
of the Waitangi Tribunal, will work with their team to explore how Māori held onto their aspirations for whānau ora
while engaging with, and against, the twentieth century welfare state.
“We will focus on the stories of the women, children and their families who directly faced Māori welfare policies,” they
say.
The team will combine whanau-centred oral histories with archival research into the roles of Māori nurses and welfare
reformists to challenge accounts of Māori as either hapless victims or resistant recipients of state services.
“The project engages with ongoing contemporary concerns around poverty, incarceration, health and family wellbeing,” say
Drs Harris and Williams.
“We expect to uncover positive models of Māori community resourcefulness, resilience and innovation under the
socio-economic pressures of the modern century.”
ends