Trauma informed healing initiatives: seeking the summit of health for a Māori tribe in Aotearoa New Zealand

When cultural health and healing patterns have been disrupted over generations, the impact of unresolved trauma can be exacerbated. When a group of people are denuded of opportunities for learning and growing and kept from the depth and beauty of their traditional knowledges, negative responses to trauma can have significant impact on health. Historical trauma theory provides a positive signpost forward in that the main objective is not to dwell on the losses incurred by the processes of colonisation and other features, but to transcend trauma and seek healing in culturally appropriate ways. Part of decolonising ourselves comes from reclaiming traditional practices of health and healing, of dealing with trauma, of defining ourselves and our cultures, of claiming our culture in positive and affirming ways.

Te Kapotai is a small rurally based hapū (tribe) in New Zealand that continues to suffer the impacts of colonisation, with ongoing social, economic and cultural challenges often manifesting as trauma responses such as addictions and maladaptive behaviours. In 2019, the hapū began development of their own pathways to health and healing, acknowledging the multiple impacts of trauma on their wellbeing. These efforts to decolonise health for their people, and to have some control over how health initiatives would be identified, developed and implemented, are for them an action of rangatiratanga - of health sovereignty.

In this lecture, 2025/26 Macgeorge Fellow Dr Lily George will utilise this case study to demonstrate the impact trauma can have on Indigenous health, and some of the ways in which Indigenous groups can take charge of their health in their unique and innovative ways.

About the speaker

Dr Lily George is a Māori social scientist who has led groundbreaking work on research sovereignty in Indigenous communities, the injustice of colonial regimes of imprisonment, and in decolonizing anthropology. After many years of working in teaching, research and student support at Massey University, Victoria University, and other tertiary institutions, she now works within the charitable Trust of her own hapū (tribe) – Te Kapotai – to implement community development and research projects for the tribe. For many years, she has focused on health and well-being, taking an interdisciplinary approach to the challenges of intergenerational trauma. Her many scholarly publications include Indigenous Research Ethics: Claiming Research Sovereignty Beyond Deficit and the Colonial Legacy and Neo-colonial Injustice and the Mass Imprisonment of Indigenous Women. Her work has been featured in a special issue of American Ethnologist, What does Decolonizing Anthropology mean in Aotearoa NZ? and she is currently co-editing a book focused on Indigenous-led community development projects with Dawn Smith of Victoria University. She is first investigator on an HRCZN funded project, Whakaoho Mauri: (Awakening lifeforce) - Exploring shifts from embodied trauma to embodied healing.

Photo credit: Western Institute of Technology Taranaki

About the Macgeorge Bequest

Norman Macgeorge, artist and patron of the arts, lived at Fairy Hills, Ivanhoe, with his wife May from 1911 until his death in 1952. May was a fellow artist and grand-daughter of overlander pastoralist and ships Captain John Hepburn (which he pronounced “Hebburn”) 1800-1860 who built Smeaton House in central Victoria, a Colonial Regency Style Georgian building dated 1849-50, and now registered by the National Trust of Australia. Further information about Norman and May Macgeorge is provided by the Ian Potter Museum of Art.

On the death of May Macgeorge in 1970, the joint intention cherished by the Macgeorges and expressed in their wills came into effect. This was to leave to the University of Melbourne their house and land, furniture, paintings, books and all effects, together with some capital.

The bequest was to enable the fulfilment of their wish to promote the arts at the University of Melbourne, especially postgraduate study of the arts, and to ensure their house, which had for many years been a centre for encouragement of the arts, continue to be such. The Macgeorge Fellowships are funded by the Macgeorge Bequest.

Post-event Reception

Please join us for light refreshments following the conclusion of the lecture where there will be an opportunity to meet the speaker.

Enquiries

Please send your enquiries to arts-engage@unimelb.edu.au

This lecture is supported by the Macgeorge Bequest.

Top image credit: Waikare Community Development & Research Trust