Browsing by Author "Emery-Whittington, Isla Te Ara o Rehua"

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Decolonising mahi : a Kaupapa Māori theory and practice framework : a thesis presented in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Public Health at SHORE & Whāriki Research Centre, Te Kunenga ki Pūrehuroa Massey University, Aotearoa-New Zealand
(Massey University, 2023) Emery-Whittington, Isla Te Ara o Rehua
The thesis is a narration of a process to reclaim theoretical space where everyday acts are once again regarded as mahi and as māori. It is a philosophical decolonial examination of both Western theories and notions of occupation (activities, acts, work, deeds) and Kaupapa Māori praxis of mahi. The aim of this Kaupapa Māori study is to examine the relationship between ‘colonisation’ and ‘occupation’ and specifically, how this relationship contributes to both the reproduction of colonialism and decolonisation of everyday life for Māori peoples. This provides a basis for formalising the Māori Occupational Therapy Network’s theorising of a Kaupapa Māori theory of mahi and practice model. Kaupapa Māori methodology provided a foundation that privileged tikanga and mātauranga through the study. Wānanga as theory making, writing to understand, publishing to disrupt and building antiracist collectives were the Kaupapa Māori methods utilised. These methods supported a critical examination of the links between occupation and colonisation. Specifically, notions of ‘occupation as a series of separations’, ‘occupations as having’, and ‘occupational justice’ were examined for their utility in reproducing and maintaining colonialism. A taxonomy of human occupations in settler-colonial states captured the observations and is outlined alongside emerging Indigenous and critical occupational therapy and occupational science literature. This study used a ‘thesis with publications pathway’ to collaboratively disrupt colonial reckons about occupation and carved new spaces to share how decoloniality is generated and transforms everyday tasks of life. Guidance for antiracist, Tiriti-based praxis is designed into a Kaupapa Māori Theory of Mahi and a practice framework called Ngā Mahi a Rehua. The study was tasked with noticing, examining and explaining how the ‘colonised’ struggle is lived and transcended in the minutiae of everyday occupations. In so doing, it also highlighted the links between institutionalised dehumanisation practices within occupational therapy and occupational science, and monocultural theorising of occupation. Despite this, the study also highlighted how an Indigenous way of being, is transformative and necessary. Evidently, despite the chronic, multi-layered, and shape-shifting nature of ‘being colonised’, mahi is a potent and abundantly accessible site of decoloniality.