Freeing ourselves from neo-colonial domination in research: A Maori approach to creating knowledge

Abstract

This analysis is undertaken by a researcher who is a member of an indigenous minority, the Maori people of Aotearoa New Zealand. This paper examines, by reference to a recent meta-study of five research projects conducted within Maori contexts, an indigenous initiative in research within Aotearoa New Zealand, an initiative that is termed Kaupapa (agenda philosophy) Maori research. This agenda for research is concerned with how research practice might realize Maori desires for self-determination, while addressing contemporary research issues of authority and legitimacy. This paper suggests that it is the cultural aspirations, understandings, and practices of Maori people that implement and organize the research process and that position researchers in such a way as to operationalize self-determination (agentic positioning and behavior) for research participants. The cultural context positions the participants by constructing the story lines and with them the cultural metaphors and images, as well as the ''thinking as usual,'' the talk language through which research participants are constituted and researcher researched relationshipsare organized. Kaupapa Maori research, thus,rejects outside control over what constitutes the text's call for authority and truth. A Kaupapa Maori position promotes, then, what Lincoln and Denzin (1994) term an epistemological version of validity. Such an approach to validity locates the power within Maori cultural practices where what is acceptable and what is not acceptable research, text, and or processes is determined and defined by the research community itself.