‘Ongoing loss, a wounding dislocation’ displacement and trauma in New Zealand literature : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Masters in Creative Writing at Massey University, Manawatū, New Zealand. EMBARGOED until 29th August 2026
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Date
2024
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Massey University
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Abstract
This thesis comprises two sections: a critical section in which the concepts of trauma and displacement are examined and analysed in the ways in which they are depicted in New Zealand literature, and a creative section which consists of a novella entitled The Strong Ones written with those same themes in mind. In the critical section, the notion that there are types of displacement, ranging from the large-scale to the small, that cause subsequent forms of trauma to emerge as a consequence is explored, and this notion is given creative expression in the following section. The critical section utilises three key literary texts with which to further study this link between displacement and trauma in New Zealand literature. Those texts are Once Were Warriors, Auē, and The Savage Coloniser Book. I read each of these texts with the Developmental-Ecological model of Urie Bronfenbrenner in mind, the better to have some manner of gauging specific societal levels of disruption and pathology. I incorporate theorists such as Peter Adey with his work on The Handbook of Displacement, Anna Westin’s Embodied Trauma and Healing: Critical conversations on the Concept of Health, and Susie O’Brien’s What the World Might Look Like: Decolonial stories of resilience and refusal, among others to help frame the discussion. These theorists concur that trauma tends to go on far beyond the initial causative event. I argue that most if not all trauma in the key texts I have selected eventuates as a result of Bronfenbrenner’s macro level of disruption. In other words, that wider, larger contexts for displacement historically and observably tend to trickle down to the small, narrower contexts and the people who live within them. The creative portion of my thesis consists of the novella entitled The Strong Ones. This novella follows the life of one-character nicknamed Hapuka, a twenty something Pasifika who is employed by the local abattoir, and his struggle to regain some semblance of forward momentum following a defining, traumatic event in his past. The themes of displacement and a kind of ongoing, reverberating suffering are fleshed out in various ways, alongside a cast of characters representing different aspects of the New Zealand/South Island working-class.
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Embargoed until 29th August 2026