To love them and to leave them? A review of a Samoan community and health service research project in New Zealand

Abstract

The place of Samoan and other Polynesian healing practices and related community projects in New Zealand society has only recently become a subject for study. This paper is an attempt to circumscribe for the people, both Samoan and non-Samoan, with whom I have been working, some of our cross-cultural associations in this field. To do this I have focused on moments in a process which has as many histories and as many futures as there are people participating in it. The interpretation presented here is a chronicle of significant information and events belonging to a 3-year period (1978–1980 inclusive). Behind the choice, to concentrate on describing the process of our dialogue and action rather than the end results—our ‘successes’ past and present—lie some fundamental questions. Can the growing understanding and on-going communication of people involved in community projects be documented so that this process is appreciated as valuable? This work takes a long commitment by researchers, even if they are members of the community project, and questions of practicality are raised. Is there a method of documentation which is acceptable both to the funding institutions that sponsor community health projects and to the people who are engaged in them? Could the present commonly accepted short-term assessment of end results, which I find objectionable, be right? And researchers evaluating community health projects, should they continue to become involved with the people they are studying for short times and then withdraw—to love them and leave them?