AlterNative: An International Journal of Indigenous Peoples

Death and funeral practices are a constant presence in many Aboriginal Australians’ lives—research in some communities found they are eight times more likely to have attended a funeral in the previous 2 years than non-Aboriginal people. This can be explained by two major factors: inordinately high rates of Aboriginal mortality and cultural practices around death (broadly referred to as Sorry Business). Research in other contexts has found traditions once reserved solely for face-to-face interactions are now also taking place online on social media. This paper draws from interviews conducted with Aboriginal social media users from New South Wales, Queensland, South Australia and Western Australia to explore new cultural expressions of Sorry Business. Drawing from Indigenous standpoint theory as both an entry point for inquiry and a tool for analysis, this paper demonstrates that Aboriginal people participate in a diverse range of online practices related to Sorry Business, including notifications of deaths and funerals, offering condolences and extending support, and grieving and healing.

Contrary to contemporary views of the act of whakamate (suicide), traditional Māori tribal pedagogies have revealed that the death of an individual by suicide was not considered a shameful or cowardly act; rather it was viewed in its full context. The person was considered to have been impacted by a state of whakamomori (overwhelming sadness and depression) and kahupō (spiritual blindness). Viewed in this context, in the time of our ancestors, premature death through suicide was considered a human tragedy and loss of potential and was thus treated with understanding, compassion and aroha (love). Drawing on traditional Māori pedagogies contained within tribal waiata mōteatea (laments), this paper presents an example of how the wisdom traditions of Māori tribal elders can inform contemporary suicide postvention interventions. The traditions are also shown to support whānau (family) recovery from unresolved grief situations including the (modern) stigma associated with the death of a loved one to whakamate.

The history of colonization in Canada has a traumatic intergenerational impact on young Aboriginal people's health, which is evidenced by the wide health disparities (Adelson, 2005; Health Council of Canada, 2012). However, extant research shows that, through resilience, many Aboriginal adolescents overcome adverse situations and develop into healthy adults (Andersson & Ledogar, 2008). Knowledge of the ways and extent to which Aboriginal youth seek support to cope with stressful events may be improved by examining the distribution of attachment styles and their relationship with resilience. The data (n = 136) used for this study were obtained from the British Columbia Adolescent Substance Use Survey. Findings indicate resiliency was significantly associated with attachment style (p < .01). The study findings provide support for tailoring resilience mental health promotion and intervention resources according to attachment style to foster long-term engagement in programming that helps Aboriginal youth live a healthy and holistically balanced life.

The indigenous development research agenda is centred on understanding and affecting social change. Kaupapa Māori theory (research theory and methodology that is uniquely Māori) and critical discourse analysis are two theoretical and methodological frameworks that can contribute to this broad agenda. The two frameworks are connected through critical theory, transdisciplinary approaches to research, tino rangatiratanga (chieftainship) and, most significantly, actualizing social change. As a Māori researcher I work alongside Māori communities and the process is non-linear and “messy”, which is the reality of working with communities. Kaupapa Māori theory provides me with the space for Māori-focused research within the academy, and critical discourse analysis is another tool I utilize to further the aspirations of the Māori communities I work alongside. In this paper I draw from an example of my research in Māori fisheries management to argue that critical discourse analysis offers researchers a framework that complements and strengthens the analysis within kaupapa Māori theory and methodology.

Previous studies on racism in the field of discursive and critical social psychology have focused mainly on perpetrator talk and text, perpetrator personality and cognition, in-group psychology, and systemic racism. Research examining targets’ perspectives and responses to racism is rare. The current study, one of the first of its kind in Aotearoa New Zealand, explores indigenous Māori accounts of their resistance to everyday racism. Nineteen Māori men and women were interviewed regarding their experiences and reactions to racist incidents. Thematic analysis informed by social constructionism was used to examine interview transcripts and identify three key themes: 1) difficulties in verbally expressing resistance to racism, 2) silent or non-vocalized resistance, and 3) vocalized resistance. Comparing and contrasting findings with previous research highlighted participants’ agentic management of resistance and a unique desire to inform perpetrators about their racism.

This article considers some key themes in messages promoted to New Zealand Māori by European colonists. With a focus on the period prior to 1870 when a number of factors came together to end Māori economic dominance, it considers whether the promoters of those messages were correct to claim that Indigenous peoples were not interested in material benefit or that individual ownership and individual endeavour for personal advantage were a greater spur to labour and productivity. Evidence pertaining to Māori is set against similar evidence from North America to argue that claims of laziness, incompetence, and inefficient land use were not merely incorrect but served to justify the transfer of land ownership from Māori to settlers in a process which appears to have parallels in North America and elsewhere.

This paper investigates food as a critical social determinant of conflict between Aboriginal Australians and British colonists in the Hunter region of central eastern New South Wales from 1804 to 1846. For Aboriginal people in the region food became a basic human need in short supply, causing duress and motivating desperate human action with stern consequences. British colonization saw violence, alienation, dispossession, starvation, malnutrition and destitution beset many Aboriginal people in the region as colonial timber, pastoral and agricultural development ripped through land encroaching on and alienating traditional hunting and harvesting grounds. Ultimately the traditional food economy collapsed under the pressure of militant colonial occupation, culminating in cultural disintegration and a forced dependency on colonial benevolence.