Innovation as Necessity: TE Rarawa and the Challenges of Multi-Purpose Research

Abstract

Te Rūnanga o Te Rarawa, like other iwi organisations, strives for seamlessness and holism in its operations. Yet, much of its work is characterised by compartmentalisation of, for example, funding, service provision, service contracts, government agencies and policymaking. In 2006, compartmentalisation of research presented itself as a problem to the Rūnanga when four projects appeared on its workload, simultaneously separate and joined. What separated the projects was that each was funded from a different source, and therefore carried different contractual obligations and reporting requirements, let alone different sets of iwi expectations. What joined the projects were the broad goals of whānau and hapū development, preparation for a post-settlement iwi environment, and research: one project was entirely a research project, and the others either included a defined research component or stood to benefit from being informed by research. The challenge for Te Rarawa was, in effect, to reclaim the research, to repackage its goals for iwi purposes, and to reinstate the principles of seamlessness and holism to its design, and to do that while also meeting the disparate contractual obligations derived from either an academic or governmental ‘compartment’. The result was Ngā Tāhuhu o te Taiao, both a conceptual umbrella under which the projects could gather, drawn together by ideological lines of ancestry and tikanga implicit in the t_huhu, and a comprehensive, structured framework that wed the research to the Rūnanga's processes and programmes of work. This paper shares some of the research stories arising from Ngā Tāhuhu o Te Taiao, and reflects on how it negotiated the methodological quagmire invoked. It discusses the challenges of aligning the research with iwi goals, and broadening research to include, for instance, investment in developing community interviewers and researchers. It considers the strategies used to introduce a multi-layered, multi-purpose research project to people suffering from research fatigue or carrying the scars of past research harm. A work in progress, Ngā Tāhuhu has faced some weighty problems, including questions about the extent to which the conjoined research goals of iwi and the academy and the relevant funding agencies may, in fact, be treated as methodologically compatible: can one research project really rule them all? So far the project has carefully navigated the dynamic of blending academic approaches and research goals with the research goals and community development values of whānau and hapū. Among the tensions and obstacles, of what often feels like uncharted waters, is a confidence that in projects like Ngā Tāhuhu research excellence demands excellent outcomes for whānau and hapū development. Moreover, success and effectiveness of the research ought to be measured – in part at least – by its direct, practical contributions to iwi development, as set by iwi goals. It is a measure that makes innovation not only desirable, but necessary.