‘We don’t talk enough’: voices from a Māori and Pasifika lead research fellowship in higher education

Abstract

ABSTRACT Higher education in Aotearoa New Zealand – we have a problem. Māori and Pasifika academics are not given time to talk together about Māori and Pasifika student success. Often framed by ‘the academy’ from a deficit position, initiatives to address the ‘problem’ of Māori student and Pasifika student success is often ad hoc and disconnected, rarely prioritised and inevitably under-resourced despite aspirational-sounding rhetoric. Furthermore, Māori and Pasifika academics are grossly under-represented in higher education (McAllister, T. G., Kidman, J., Rowley, O., & Theodore, R. (2019). Why isn’t my professor Māori? MAI Journal, 8(2), doi:10.20507/MAIJournal.2019.8.2.10; Naepi, S. (2019). Why isn’t my professor Pasifika? MAI Journal, 8(2), doi:10.20507/MAIJournal.2019.8.2.9.) as we negotiate institutional and cultural expectations. This article describes a Māori and Pasifika-led research fellowship focused on Māori and Pasifika student success in Aotearoa New Zealand’s largest university, The University of Auckland. He Vaka Moana is a strength-based model, framed by principles and methodologies that emerge from the language, connections and ways of being which sustain us as Oceanic people. Drawing on nautical notions of traversing the Pacific Ocean, we encourage Māori and Pasifika researchers to come together in purposeful and transformational ways, not to further homogenise Oceanic identities, but to pikipiki hama – lash our canoes together – to support our common aspirations for revolutionary change in higher education for our diverse communities. Here, we share the voices of Māori and Pasifika He Vaka Moana fellows engaged with the tensions and complexities of transforming the tertiary experience for Māori and Pasifika students.