Date of Award

2024

Document Type

Honors Thesis (Open Access)

Department

Colby College. Music Dept.

Advisor(s)

Natalie Zelensky

Abstract

I explore the relationship between music and healing in Aotearoa New Zealand, and how healing is administered through the triadic relationship of the land, placehood, and community, using music as a vehicle for the carriage of this healing. In January of 2024, I traveled to Aotearoa New Zealand to gain a first-hand experience and account of this relationship through my own observations, and conducting interviews with Māori (the Indigenous people of Aotearoa New Zealand) individuals, and Pākehā (non-Māori) music therapists. Within this paper, I begin by providing context for this research within the fields of medical ethnomusicology, Indigenous studies, Māori studies, and music therapy, and explain my methodology for my fieldwork. I explore the relationship and influence of the triad of the land, placehood, and community on musical healing, with specific attention to my explorations of the theme of placehood in healing, as it has not been previously identified in scholarship within medical ethnomusicology as a cornerstone of Māori healing. Through my research and fieldwork, speaking with music therapists Rachel Foxell, Holly McPhee, and Emily Wills, and Māori individuals Jodie Owen, Huitau Elkington, and Vera Cheffers, I conclude that in musical healing in Aotearoa New Zealand, the land, placehood, and community exist harmoniously, where the utilization of one as healing inherently involves all three. Lastly, I postulate potential explorations of place within Indigenous communities in the field of medical ethnomusicology, acknowledging that my research is the beginning of a much larger conversation on music and the connection to place.

Keywords

ethnomusicology, medical ethnomusicology, Māori music, Māori music and healing, music and healing

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