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Māori women: Bodies, spaces, sacredness and mana
Author(s) -
August Wikitoria
Publication year - 2005
Publication title -
new zealand geographer
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.335
H-Index - 25
eISSN - 1745-7939
pISSN - 0028-8144
DOI - 10.1111/j.1745-7939.2005.00025.x
Subject(s) - perspective (graphical) , sociology , gender studies , colonialism , menstruation , anthropology , aesthetics , geography , art , visual arts , archaeology , medicine
This article examines Māori women and the ways in which their bodies are constituted within particular cultural spaces, namely at urupā and sites where food is gathered. Māori bodily rituals, and the impacts of colonization on these bodily rituals, are explored to reveal a ‘nonwestern’ perspective on exclusion. Kaupapa Māori research and postcolonial theory have been combined to produce research that respects and nurtures Māori practices. Colonial notions of blood and menstruation, which inscribe women as ‘dirty’ and ‘unclean’, are critiqued. What is advocated is a Māori perspective that constructs Māori women as connected to Atua , and as powerful, sacred and life‐giving.