Pacific Dynamics: Volume 6 • Issue 2 • Sep 2022

FULL EXCERPT: For centuries, Pacific societies were sustained by collective knowledge systems premised on a relational existence between humans and the environment. European contact, through its modernising agenda disturbed this reality, and turned Pacific knowledge systems on their head, relegating them as secondary, or in some instances irrelevant. Political independence since the early 1960’s has seen a renaissance in things Pacific. Universities have been central to this development. At the University of Otago, under the umbrella of the Pacific Thought Network (PacTNet), graduate students and academics both of Pacific and of non-Pacific heritage participate in a range of activities that foster Pacific ways of knowing and engagement.

FULL ABSTRACT: The profile of Indigenous Studies as a discipline and programme of study has increased considerably in recent years, and this is also true at the University of Otago. At Te Tumu, the arrangement of Indigenous Studies alongside Māori and Pacific Islands Studies represents a coalition of pedagogical expertise and, with their proximity, students and academics are permitted and encouraged to make regular disciplinary border crossings. The Indigenous Development Programme, as distinct from Indigenous Studies, now extends space for critical engagements with the futurity of plural indigeneities, discerned at, and from, this particular place; Dunedin, New Zealand – Ōtepoti, Aotearoa – the University of Otago. In this article, we offer an understanding of Indigenous development as early career researchers who are respectively charged with setting a renewed heading for the programme, and ensuring it is well-provisioned for the journey. We discuss, in particular, the Pacific studies traditions shaping our approach to teaching and course design, and do so by touching on our personal experience working across Māori and Pacific research contexts. In the spirit of this special issue, we draw particular attention to the ways we see Pacific intellectual genealogies growing into the Indigenous development programme.

FULL ABSTRACT: This paper discusses the attempts of two academics of European descent (one English, one American) who both lived and researched in Fiji for a number of years to develop a longitudinal quantitative research project examining the socio-economics of religious change in this Pacific nation. We explain how specific data gathering techniques and recent statistical advances in network analysis may offer novel means for documenting and visualising the relational ontologies of Pacific life. In quantifying the ‘space between’ individuals in Fijian villages and informal settlements by recording the flow of resources, labour and social support, over time and across the community as a whole, the data captures the relational dynamics of Fijian social life. Thus, this intended study seeks to reveal the relative socioeconomic effects of intra-Christian conversion, namely the rapid growth of Pentecostalism, on Fijian practices of reciprocity and sharing. We also consider the ethical implications and the suitability of longitudinal methods for research in the Pacific and how they may be strengthened and contextualised by attention to Pacific Research Methodologies scholarship.

FULL ABSTRACT: My doctoral study explored the development of the Fiji higher education sector following the 2006 coup, from 2007 to 2017, and the challenges faced by the sector during this time. The study involved interviews with government officials and higher education stakeholders, alongside analysis of key policy texts. As a Fijian researcher doing potentially sensitive research, I was acutely aware of the need to conduct the study in a way that was robust, but beneficial to Fiji and Fijians. I was also aware of my status as a Fijian (and former government employee) who was bonded to return ‘home’. In this paper, I describe my study context, and the considerations that led me to draw on the Fijian Vanua Research Framework as an ethical and methodological guide for my research. I describe how I applied the Fijian Vanua Research Framework at each stage of my study, and conclude with some reflections on research, reciprocity and research ethics in politically sensitive contexts.

FULL ABSTRACT: In this paper I discuss how the values, beliefs, and processes of talanoa contribute to wholesome research. I used to think that my PhD journey should not have been this difficult. There were times when I had difficulties in supporting my intuitive thoughts. I concluded that this was my lack of academic skills, but now I recognize that those intuitive thoughts are aligned to indigenous worldviews. I realized that I was not the only one who faced this problem when I mentored Pasifika DBA (Doctor of Business Administration) students. In my perception, the lack of access to indigenous methodologies knowledge and a collaboration space made it difficult for students to engage their culture and tradition within their research proposal. I then understood the tension that I had felt when my own values conflicted with the mainstream methodologies I was expected to use in my research. As deadlines approached, it was safer for me to go with the prevalent acceptable research standards as there was neither time, nor an appropriate collaboration space, to think through such conflicts. In subsequently studying indigenous methodologies as an alternative approach to mainstream thinking, I found that talanoa with its underlying values and beliefs bridged the conflicts that I had felt. Talanoa reflected my reciprocal conversations during my interviews with the research participants, but I realised that the discussions lacked co-constructing research outcomes. I feel that just contemplating underlying talanoa values such as respect, reciprocity, collective responsibility, humility, love/charity, service, and spirituality form a basis for valuable conversations. In contrast, I find research interviews to be more process oriented with little contemplation to values attached.

FULL ABSTRACT: Each year, students in Pacific nations sit high-stakes national and regional examinations of English, their second or other language. The results often determine their secondary schooling choices and trajectories. This paper argues that repeated uninterrupted enactment of these forms of summative language assessment, and a preoccupation with final scores and ranking in Pacific nations including Tonga, has resulted in an imbalance between the dual ‘educational accountability’ and ‘instructional enhancement’ functions of assessment. This current imbalance obscures the powerful formative potential of these assessments, and masks the wealth of information within the scripts themselves for informing pedagogical practice. Failing to ‘listen to’ what scripts can tell us potentially robs education systems, children, teachers, teacher educators and education policymakers of vital real-time feedback for continual responsive improvement and innovation in teaching, learning, and assessment. To address the imbalance, we argue for the value of a multi-disciplinary approach which mines examination scripts for their insights into instructional and assessment improvement. Two small-scale studies are presented as examples of this. Item analysis and error analysis of student answers in a past Tonga Secondary School Entrance Examination (SEE) Class 6 English examination have revealed multiple insights into the nature of test items and test construction as well as students’ productive language abilities and strategies in English as a second language (ESL). The findings from these studies point clearly to the need for continued capacity building in assessment literacy, and the value of placing a solid understanding of the child’s first language and culture at the heart of effective teaching, learning, and assessment of English as a second language.

FULL ABSTRACT: Research into Pacific peoples’ sexuality and reproduction is often complex and conflicts with social tapu. Historically, Pacific sexuality and reproduction research had been approached using a deficits-based lens with minimal congruence of Pacific cultural values. We offer a revitalised Fonofale model (Pulotu-Endemann, 1995) as a research paradigm that centres tapu in all considerations and decisions surrounding the research. This revitalised model offers a strengths-based approach that can promote valuable collection of, and meaningful engagement with data. We offer a case study which utilised this research paradigm as an overarching strategy. Te Tīpani Project was a mixed methods investigation into eighty-two Pacific tertiary students’ understandings of sexuality and reproduction. Pacific research methods and methodologies, including the Kakala model and Talanoa method supported the integration of the paradigm into components of the study. We encourage researchers to utilise this strategy to fulfil their research obligations, as facilitators and guardians (mana tiaki) of the research environment. Pacific research methods, methodologies and epistemologies hold an important place in the field of sensitive Pacific well-being research by enabling cultural consideration and responsiveness.

FULL ABSTRACT: Illicit drugs have become a growing cause of concern in Fiji. This paper seeks to discuss the illicit drug related events and issues in Fiji. Despite diverse sentiments both negative and positive shared on the cultivation and use of illegal drugs, empowerment training, wellbeing seminars, discussions and campaigns being promoted, illicit drugs production, consumption and trade have become part of life for Fijians. To explore this reality, the paper adopts a qualitative research design in the form of media analysis of Fiji’s two main daily newspapers; The Fiji Times and The Fiji Sun. The analysis draws on news stories in the two newspapers between June 2020 and May 2021. Findings provide insights into the environmental, social, political, judicial and technical factors that are preventing Fiji from eradicating or lowering illicit drugs production, consumption and trade. Commitment from the wider Fijian society including NGOs, civil society, development and technical partners and the community with the Fiji Police Force is required to successfully combat the illicit drug problems.

FULL ABSTRACT: The global concern with Child Sexual Abuse (CSA) is afflicting the countries in the Pacific, with some countries being affected more than others. Pacific countries are trying to deal with the issue through various means, including the reporting legislation amongst the public, mandated professions, or both. This review analyses reporting laws in thirteen Pacific countries – Cook Islands, Fiji, Kiribati, Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Nauru, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tonga, Tuvalu and Vanuatu. Differences were found for the following – the presence of reporting laws specific for children; whether the reporting system is mandatory, voluntary or both; type of professions who are mandated to report; penalties and protection incurred by reporters; the reporting decision and process; and how CSA is defined. The review also noted that reporting legislature in Pacific countries did not match specific needs and challenges of the island countries, and it failed to consider local social and cultural differences that affect reporting.