I am (M)other-wise : decolonising Family Court systems in Aotearoa New Zealand through nomadic processes of re-membering and becoming : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in Psychology at Massey University, Manawatū, New Zealand. EMBARGOED until 2nd May 2026
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Date
2025
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Massey University
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Abstract
This project flows from my own experience of silence and suffering within the Family Court of Aotearoa New Zealand as I attempted to move my life, and those of my children, to safety following the end of my marriage. It seeks to disrupt the demonisation of separated (m)others within the Family Court system that results in unsafe outcomes for women and children and is perpetuated by the privileging of majoritarian/masculinist, colonial and patriarchal knowledge. I move through this project alone, but not alone, my own knowing linking deeply and inextricably with that of others in a process of collective becoming-with (Haraway, 2019). Informed by a feminist politics of location that privileges situated knowledge as the route to strong objectivity, albeit always partial and incomplete (Haraway, 1988), and a relational process ontology, I engage in a nomadic process of re-membering (Braidotti, 2011), listening hard to hear the unsaid in order to map a cartographic figuration of the conditions of the present from within my embodied and embedded location. Creative, nomadic re-membering opens space for the ethical affirmation of difference and dis-identification from dominant, singular representations, enabling me to resist the figuration of vindictive, hostile, obstructive, selfish, uncaring and in-credible (m)other produced through the gendered norms of Western heteronormativity that form the bars of my epistemological cage. As I push against the bars of my cage, I seek to move away from pathologisation and suffering by re-telling myself differently, transforming my own knowing and repositioning my song as legitimate. Through acknowledgement that the personal is political, my resistance to the figuration of Vindictive (M)other also seeks to decolonise knowledge systems that perpetuate the suffering of women who have left coercively controlling relationships. My creative, interdisciplinary process of affective re-membering enables re-imagining of new possibilities for my own future and the collective futures of other (m)others engaged in Family Court processes within Aotearoa New Zealand, opening space for the (m)other-wise knowledge of women to be heard and legitimised. I re-imagine a future in which (m)others who leave coercively controlling relationships might be permitted the right to freedom and flourishing.
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Embargoed until 2nd May 2026.