Ngā Kāmiti wahine : theorising the politicisation of Māori women in the late nineteenth century

Abstract

This study seeks to contribute to Māori feminist research practice and scholarship, through an examination of Māori women's political activities in Aotearoa/New Zealand during the late nineteenth century. During the 1890s, Māori women formed committees (ngā Komiti Wahine), whose membership was based on gender, iwi and hapū affiliations. Why and how did this happen and who were involved? In answering these questions, this thesis will show that Māori women's committees in the late nineteenth century enabled Māori women to be a collective force within their iwi and hapū, and to shape cultural relations within their wider communities. There are tensions around the labeling of Māori women and their activities as 'feminist'; the discussion on the research methodology explains why this work is by definition, Māori feminist research. The section on the research methodology proposes a dual framework that is based on Kaupapa Wahine Māori and Western feminist theories to explore the reasons why and how Māori women's committees were formed within the context of cultural interaction, i.e. colonisation. The framework also enables the connections and divergences between Māori women and others to be explored. Relevant Western feminist thought, research methods and methodologies were used in this study as prostheses for exploring certain aspects and dynamics of colonisation. The methodological approach of Kaupapa Wahine Māori that has been chosen for this study places an emphasis on the process of understanding Māori women's lived experiences. Researching the lives of Māori women is however problematic. Much of the information about them is usually obscured under the general headings 'Māori people' or 'New Zealand women', or more often 'New Zealanders.' Specific information about Māori women has been omitted from the mainstream historical record and the extant material by Māori women is minimal. Furthemore the fractured nature of recorded information about Māori women means that any attempt at recovering Māori women's history, is necessarily a process of 'piecing together' sometimes brief and oblique references from a wide range of sources. The main challenge in this study was to present an historical narrative that is squarely focused on Māori women through a critical re-reading of the historical record. This was done by singling out the major themes and then the recurrent ones, which provide the basis of the discourses of this analysis. As a result, the story that unfolded revealed the significant contribution that Komiti Wahine made to developing relations between Māori and Pākeha and within their own hapū and iwi in the late nineteenth century. In many respects, this study confirms the view that revisionist history is a critical project of Māori feminist scholarship. Moreover this study is characteristic of feminist research which discounts the notion of a single definitive narrative, this is only one interpretation - there should be many more.