Reflection on Whānau ora - A reflection piece by Kara Shannahan- Student Placement at Hāpai te Hauora
Date: 10-12 September
Venue: Holiday Inn, 2 Ascot Rd, Māngere, Auckland
Tariana Turia spoke at the Whānau Ora 2018 conference which was rousing, and succeeded in what I feel she sought to do, which was to invigorate, inspire and encourage those implementing whānau ora on the ground. Her speech was a rallying call, the ongoing theme throughout was her call ‘to arms’ - to maintain the integrity of whānau ora in the face of ongoing systemic challenges.
I am not overly familiar with the whānau ora approach, and that certainly colours how I interpreted Tariana’s speech. What I gathered from the energy of the room and what was said, was that in its inception, whānau ora was somewhat revolutionary. Revolutionary in the sense that it was a radical departure from the previous ways social services interacted with Māori. It was a shift in approach from a paternalistic disempowering way of doing things to one which centred whānau and ultimately shifted power and accountability. I gathered that whānau ora was driven by a groundswell of people working in the communities to provide empowering and trans formative services to whānau. There was a palpable sense of passion and impetus around whānau ora and the woman who was its champion within the walls of parliament.
What also came across was the notion that whānau ora had been fighting an uphill battle. This seems to be an inescapable challenge and contradiction that comes with being a Māori organisation navigating and existing within Pākehā systems. In these spaces, existing models of funding, accountability, and bureaucracy are at odds with, and undermine the work of Māori organisations. Whether the current government is able to realise the intrinsic value in the whānau ora approach seems to be the big question of the moment. It would be a tremendous loss should the government re-brand and re-appropriate whānau ora in the coming years, disrupting the premises which make it such a radical departure from Pākehā ways of doing.
With systems and structures that seem to be designed to contain and inhibit Māori flourishing this brings into question how one can break out of these systems altogether, this too was a hot topic on the day, one of ‘revolution’. ‘Revolution’ conjures up images in the popular, or at least my imagination of marxists, sandinistas and disruptive political and economic transformations. I am not entirely sure if this is what Tariana had in mind, but she certainly was speaking to the idea of collective action to take back power.
Tariana’s call for whānau ora workers to bring about such a change did not initially sit particularly well with me, I felt she was placing excessive accountability on workers, in doing so obscuring the very real challenges imposed by the systems which render their work do difficult. Upon reflection, I realise that this was not so much an assertion of blame but rather a call for collectivising. It is true, taking power is contingent on the coming together of people, whānau ora workers and organisations are too stronger together. United - they grow a stronger voice and greater lobbying power in political spaces creating opportunities to take power.
This is not revolutionary in itself, but if this collective voice is used to carve a new self-determining space for whānau ora which breaks free of the existing limiting structures, then its on the right track. The oppressive structures of capitalism, racism and patriarchy breed struggles which are linked to one another. whānau ora is radical and revolutionary but it will not achieve its objectives in isolation. The systems which perpetuate poverty, imprisonment, sickness and divide and conquer communities must be dismantled. Tariana’s rallying call was a fantastic start and certainly very inspiring, but this is only the beginning of the work that must be done. United, Aotearoa must work to decolonise and liberate not only Māori but all peoples from the structures and systems which tie us down to create space for Tino Rangatiratanga and aspirational, flourishing communities to exist.
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