The Māfana Framework: how Pacific students are using collaborative tasks to decolonize their learning

Abstract

ABSTRACT How are Pacific students redesigning their own learning environments, in response to the cultural distance between Western tertiary education and their needs as Indigenous people? This study explores how Pacific students are applying their cultural values within tertiary learning spaces in which teachers are absent, disrupting educational colonization and neoliberal idealism within the autonomous learning zone of collaborative tasks. Our talanoa (conversations) with Pacific tertiary students and review of Pacific scholarship identifies how Pacific cultural ideals might be more clearly recognized and valued through collaborative learning. We describe this as the Māfana Framework; enhancing a sense of māfana (feeling enlivened) by fostering an Acceptance in learning relationships, an Acknowledgement of other beings in all forms, and a purposeful Animation of the space. While this study focuses on tertiary students in collaborative tasks associated with choreography, we present this framework for consideration as to how it might be applied within diverse subject areas, contributing to a growing body of literature that values Pacific learners’ needs and perspectives.