Unlearning colonial constructs: conception, pregnancy, birth and infancy

Abstract

This article presents ancestral knowledge capable of indigenising and decolonising current constructs about conception, pregnancy, birth and infancy. This knowledge comes from the voices of Māori elders and whānau (parents and extended family) who live close to their ancestral marae (cultural meeting spaces). They recall important cultural understandings and practices from Te ao Māori (the Māori world) as they relate to their own experiences. Today, much of this knowledge has been overtaken as the medical models of the coloniser claim these spaces having simultaneously devalued Māori ways of knowing and being. As this group contributes to the revitalisation of these concepts, they are resisting and unlearning the functional and cultural sterility of how their babies were born into this world, for one that speaks to the rich, spiritual and cultural connections to their ancestors.