Governing bodies: a Maori healing tradition in a bicultural state

Biculturalism is a relationship in government between the British Crown and the indigenous [Māori] people of New Zealand. I show that this relationship permeated some Māori healing practitioners’ healing knowledge and perception. A key way in which this occurred was through the practitioners recognizing biological and social boundaries between Māori and Pākehā [New Zealanders of European descent]. A second was through the practitioners’ embodiment of connections with social groups including the nation, a history and present shared between Māori and Pākehā and an idealized pre-contact past. A fundamental principle of Te Oo Mai Reia was that for the practitioners to harness the power of the various forces that sustained life they had to be in touch with their whakapapa [genealogy] for it was through their ancestors that they could commune with the Ultimate Deity, Io, the source of the most potent of all forces of life. A further key principle was that spiritually inspired and traditional Māori culture heightened the wellbeing of Māori, not modern, Pākehā culture. Spiritual and ancient knowledge was supra-conscious and made knowable through an embodied awareness of self and other. To make my argument I draw on literature inspired by Foucault that shows how states govern by implementing their operations and securing their penetration into the citizenry by drawing and building upon pre-existing bodies of knowledge and relations of power. I also draw on literature that shows how the human body bears the effects of such practices of government. To this literature I integrate perception by showing how, in this Māori healing context, the government of the bicultural nation-state worked through the ways the practitioners made sense with the body (especially through feeling, seeing and touching).

Name thesis:degree_name

PhD

Level thesis:degree_level

Doctoral

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Anthropology

Grantor dc:publisher

ResearchSpace@Auckland

Year dc:date.issued

2008

Author dc:creator

• O'Connor, Tony, 1972-

Advisors dc:contributor.advisor

• Dr Susanna Trnka
• Associate Professor Julie Park
• Dr Rhys Jones

• healing
• body
• medical anthropology
• governmentality
• embodiment
• perception
• biculturalism
• New Zealand

Statement dc:rights

• Items in ResearchSpace are protected by copyright, with all rights reserved, unless otherwise indicated.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• https://researchspace.auckland.ac.nz/docs/uoa-docs/rights.htm

Language dc:language.iso

en

Handle dc:identifier.uri

https://hdl.handle.net/2292/2327

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:researchspace.auckland.ac.nz:2292/2327