Indigenous and Decolonizing Studies in Education: Mapping the Long View

The analysis of narrative data in applied linguistics has focused to varying degrees on their content, form, and context, with content and thematic analyses being the focus in much of the narrative research in language learning and teaching (Pavlenko 2007). The aim of this article is to report on a positioning analysis of a small story about the imagined ‘better life’ of a migrant, pre-service teacher. Positioning analysis operates on three levels, which together require the analyst to examine the content and characters in the story, the interactive performance of the story, and the positions that are agentively taken by the narrator vis-a-vis normative discourses. Positioning analysis thus considers content, form, and context. I propose and demonstrate an extended version of this approach which enables inclusion of data beyond the small story. The analysis reveals how the teacher interactively constructs an answer to the question ‘Who am I?’ in her story.

An extended positioning analysis of a pre-service teacher's better life small story

In building Samoan academic researcher capacity in Samoa, we argue that there is a need to first establish the kind of researcher community advocated by Linda Tuhiwai Smith, and to do so through developing research tools, such as the talanoa and faafaletui, in partnership with researcher capacity-building initiatives such as the applied postgraduate social and health research methods course (coded PUBX731-HSA505) run by the Centre for International Health, University of Otago, in partnership with the National University of Samoa. This paper offers a commentary on the talanoa and faafaletui as Pacific research methodologies, and asks what its value might be for researchers in Samoa. It reflects on the learning experiences of staff and students of the applied social and health research methods course in relation to the talanoa and faafaletui as Pacific research methodologies or methods. It concludes that developing Pacific research and researcher capacity in Pacific Island countries, such as Samoa, must include opening up spaces within these communities to critically engage what is Pacific or Samoan or indigenous about these research tools, methods or methodologies, and how they might differ in form or substance from other methods or methodologies.

O le ‘oto'otoga

I le atina'e o le su'esu'eina o le poto salalau i Samoa, matou te manatu e ao ona faatuina ni faalapotopotga e pei ona fai mai Linda Tuhiwai Smith e ala lea i ni mafutaga faafaletui e galulue faatasi ma le PUBX731-HSA505 lea e faafoeina e le Iunivesite o Otago ma le Iunivesite o Samoa (NUS). O le pepa lenei e faamatala ai le metotia o le faafaletui i lona mau faavae ma lona aoga i le su'esu'ega a tagata Samoa i le poto salalau. O loo faailoa mai ai le iloa ma le poto masani o faia'oga ma le fanau a'oga i le faatinoga ma le aoga o le metotia o le faafaletui. Ma ua maua ai se manatu faapea: E ao i le su'esu'eina o le poto salalau i Samoa ma isi atunuu i le Pasefika ona sa'ili, po o a tonu lava metotia e afua mai i le laufanua o le Pasefika ma pe faapefea ona iloa ‘ese'esega mai isi metotia?

Decolonising Pacific research, building Pacific research communities and developing Pacific research tools: The case of the talanoa and the faafaletui in Samoa

Talanoa has been defined as ‘talking about nothing in particular’, ‘chat’ or ‘gossip’. It is within the cultural milieu of talanoa that knowledge and emotions are shared and new knowledge is generated. Talanoa has recently been taken up by development researchers and others as a culturally appropriate research method in Pacific contexts. However, talanoa is often treated as synonymous with ‘informal open-ended interviews’ and tends to gloss over the deep empathic understanding required in such exchanges. Highlighting the connection between talanoa and empathy is vital in ensuring that development practitioners and researchers are implicitly aware of the political dimensions, cultural appropriacy and socio-ecological impact of their research methods. This connection is also critical in illuminating how talanoa as a method may decolonise research in the Pacific, inform the decolonisation of research in other cultural contexts, and contribute to ethical and empowering development policy and practice. We will argue for the merits of what we refer to here as ‘empathic apprenticeship’: an intentional, embodied, emotional, and intersubjective methodology and process between the researcher and the participant. An empathic apprenticeship has the potential to enhance shared understandings between all human beings and is essential if talanoa is intended as a decolonising research methodology.

Talanoa as empathic apprenticeship

Talanoa Research is the most culturally appropriate research design in the ethnic Fijian community in Fiji. Talanoa asks researchers to establish a good interpersonal relationship and rapport with ethnic Fijian participants. Talanoa research expects researchers and participants to share not only their time and interests but also emotions. Researchers need to use culturally appropriate procedures in conducting talanoa research effectively. For this purpose, researchers should be aware of ethnic Fijian cultural values and beliefs in sharing, giving and typical ethnic Fijian transactions of discussion including their non-verbal communication cues. If protocols are ignored, research results are most unlikely to be reliable, since many ethnic Fijian participants may end the talanoa. They might even deliberately elicit a wrong response to teach researchers a lesson.

/pdf/talanoa-research-culturally-appropriate-research-design-in-zkixntopxj.pdf

Talanoa Research: Culturally Appropriate Research Design in Fiji

This paper contributes to the theorising on Pacific research approaches from a personal and Tongan perspective. At the same time, it suggests that the majority of the thinking and concepts discussed have similarities and common implications for most other Pacific communities in AotearoalNew Zealand. In the paper, I discuss the underpinnings of what constitutes 'normality' in relation to research approaches. In order to theorise an appropriate approach to researching Pacific educational and social issues in Aotearoa, I discuss the infiuence Pacific indigenous values have on the way New Zealand Pacific peoples see their worlds.

/pdf/talanoa-research-methodology-a-developing-position-on-3y0rokyp9y.pdf

Talanoa Research Methodology: A Developing Position on Pacific Research

https://link-springer-com-443.webvpn.jmu.edu.cn/content/pdf/10.1007%2F978-981-287-532-7_15-1.pdf

Talanoa : A Tongan Research Methodology and Method

Summary Ako is a traditional Polynesian concept meaning both to learn and to teach. This paper examines this concept and its relationship to education for Maori and Pacific youth against the backdrop of lifelong learning. It argues that success for Maori and Pacific youth can only be successful if attention is paid to their cultural as well as their academic needs. It argues for the educational development of the whole person incorporating the intellectual, spiritual and physical components of the self and the community rather than the economic and labour imperatives that often drive educational systems.

Ako – a traditional learning concept for maori and pacific youth, and its relationship to lifelong learning

https://link-springer-com-443.webvpn.jmu.edu.cn/content/pdf/10.1007%2F978-981-10-1839-8_8-1.pdf

The Value of Indigenous Knowledge to Education for Sustainable Development and Climate Change Education in the Pacific

This paper discusses key issues raised by indigenous peoples during CONFINTEA VI and proposes strategies to enable them to participate in ongoing processes. Indigenous peoples are not involved in the design, implementation and monitoring of adult education programmes, and this often results in a “one-size-fits-all” model. This article takes the position that indigenous people must have full and effective participation in all matters which concern them and that well-meaning policy statements are only as effective as the display of real effort to make them work. One example of an indigenous community taking initiative in order to free itself of overwhelming deficit positioning by mainstream educational and other systems is the Māori community of Aotearoa/New Zealand. The paper argues that through CONFINTEA VI, there is still space for the voice of indigenous peoples to be heard.

https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdfplus/41480685.pdf

Timote Masima Vaioleti

Papers

Talanoa Research Methodology: A Developing Position on Pacific Research

Talanoa : A Tongan Research Methodology and Method

Ako – a traditional learning concept for maori and pacific youth, and its relationship to lifelong learning

The Value of Indigenous Knowledge to Education for Sustainable Development and Climate Change Education in the Pacific

Inclusion of indigenous peoples in CONFINTEA VI and follow-up processes