Keeping chooks at home in the Waikato: Exploring postcolonial, feminist and kaupapa Māori perspectives

Abstract

This thesis considers the narratives of eight Māori chook keepers from the Waikato rohe, Aotearoa. The Waikato rohe has been selected due to its significant history of Māori horticultural and agricultural practises, including chook keeping.

I build on the growing corpus of mātauranga about indigenous studies. Using a postcolonial, feminist and Kaupapa Māori theoretical framework, I undertook five semi-structured interviews and one focus rōpū with Māori kaumātua. This thesis does not attempt to represent all Māori. There may be considerable difference between whānau, hapū and iwi practices. However, the rangahau provides insights into the views of eight individuals and their experiences with chooks. I have also utilised Country Calendar (1970; 1977a; 1977b and 1980) episodes and children's pukapuka such as Nanny Mihi's Garden (Drewery 2002) for the purposes of discourse analysis.

By listening to these stories, kaupapa including race, class and ethnicity emerge that affect the participants' everyday lives as chook keepers. The participants view chooks in a variety of ways. First, as a means of food production. By integrating chooks into their communities, the participants are able to provide a nutritious and low-cost kai source for themselves and their whānau. This attempts to at least in part address their poverty problems. Second, as a hybridised Pākehā and Maori kararehe. Third, as hysterical, comical, silly and helpless. I explore these issues within the broader context of colonial, neocolonial and anticolonial practices.