Investigating the influence of socio-cultural-political pressures on Māori suicide: A comparison of known Māori suicides from 1840-1939 with those from 1940-2019.

Project Summary 

Every week in Aotearoa, the lives of a disproportionate number of whānau Māori are forever changed by suicide. There are multiple and complex reasons for this, and despite intense efforts focused on prevention, rates remain stubbornly high. 

This research uses Kaupapa Māori theory to challenge the current dominant Western explanations for suicide, which fail to consider socio-cultural-political pressures and historical processes such as colonisation as core to Indigenous suicide. Using Indigenous knowledge, it builds on previous research showing a correlation between incremental increases in Māori suicides, and the alienation of Māori from their land, language and identity in the century following the signing of Te Tiriti o Waitangi as successive racist government policies took effect. Specifically, this scoping study is mapping Māori suicides from 1940-2019 against relevant government policy of that era, for comparison with findings from 1840-1939, to build a better understanding of the influence of socio-cultural-political pressures. 

This project is a multi-institutional collaboration between Te Hikuwai Rangahau Hauora in the Faculty of Health, Te Herenga Waka–Victoria University of Wellington, and Te Ata Hāpara, the new suicide research centre of excellence in the Faculty of Medical and Health Sciences, University of Auckland, with crucial support from kaumātua.