Anna Adcock

Sociology and Kaupapa Māori research paradigms Anna encountered in her Master’s now fuel her PhD and her work as a research fellow in Māori women’s health.

Portrait of Anna Adcock smiling at the camera. She has brown hair and wears a yellow top.

The original majors for my undergraduate degree were Māori Studies and American Studies. I was drawn to these subjects in large part due to my own experiences growing up Māori in Aotearoa New Zealand. I have always been interested in exploring inequities, in particular indigeneity, colonialism, and the intersection of ethnicity/race, class, and gender. There are so many choices when studying Sociology, especially at postgraduate level. Don’t be put off by all the ‘dead white men’. There will be theorists and theories that fit with your interests. Get ready to come across terms like ontology, epistemology, paradigm, and methodology. You’ll learn them eventually; it just takes time.

A few years ago, after a career in teaching, I was interested in doing postgraduate study, and I thought Sociology might fit well with my interests and enable me to better understand how society works in reproducing and reinforcing inequities. It turns out, Sociology is an incredibly interesting, versatile subject. You can apply sociological theory to (probably) everything that involves people. I most enjoyed learning about and engaging in critical discussion about different sociological theories and works. At Master’s level, I honed my critical thinking and research skills. I learnt how to choose compatible social theory and methods of research. In particular, I sharpened my qualitative data analysis and project management skills.

During Honours year, my supervisor connected me with a Māori-led women’s health research group, then based at the University of Otago, Wellington, who were looking for Māori researchers to contribute to a Kaupapa Māori (by Māori, for Māori) qualitative longitudinal research study about the experiences of pregnant Māori women under 20 years old. I first did a qualitative analysis of government agency interviews from the study for my Honours thesis. I was then invited to explore the experiences of the young mothers and their whānau through an analysis of their interviews for my MA thesis. These analyses were both grounded in a Kaupapa Māori research inquiry paradigm that sought to examine the structural issues affecting young Māori mothers. Sociological theory was useful for complementing the critical and transformative goals of this inquiry.

That work led to me being employed as an assistant research fellow with the group after I finished my postgraduate studies, and then to my current role as a research fellow with the same group—Te Tātai Hauora o Hine (National Centre for Women’s Health Research Aotearoa)—now based in the Faculty of Health at Te Herenga Waka—Victoria University of Wellington. I am now working towards my PhD in Health and Wellbeing here at Te Tātai Hauora o Hine (and the Faculty of Health), exploring Māori whānau experiences of preterm/premature birth with the goal of health system transformation to better meet the needs and aspirations of whānau. My Sociology studies still help inform this work.