Notes on: Linda Tuhiwai Smith, (2008). Decolonising Methodologies . Research and Indigenous Peoples. 12th impression. New York: Palgrave.

Dave Harris


Introduction

For the colonised, research means 'European imperialism and colonialism' and the word is 'probably one of the dirtiest words in the indigenous world's vocabulary' (1), greeted with silence, bad memories, distrust. People remember that skulls were filled with millet seeds as a measure of their capacity for mental thought, that brief encounters with some of us were generalised, that the West owned our ways of knowing and the things we created but rejected the people who created them, that historical practices are still used to deny the validity of current claims to existence and land, language and knowledge. [all these applied to working class white people too, of course]. Said said this Western discourse about the Other was supported by institutions, scholarship and bureaucracies, a scholarly construction about the Orient, supported by corporate institutions. Research therefore becomes a site of struggle between the West and its interests and ways of knowing, and the interests and ways of resisting of the Other, indigenous peoples. It is difficult right from the start to discuss research methodology and indigenous peoples in the same framework without understanding first how the pursuit of knowledge is embedded in imperial and colonial practices.

Of course research projects might serve the greater good for mankind, or even emancipatory goals for oppressed communities, but these run the risk of being reflections of ideology, simply assumed, ignoring other stories to tell which question them, when seen through the eyes of the colonised. 'And, of course, most indigenous peoples and their communities do not differentiate scientific or "proper" research from the forms of amateur collecting, journalistic approaches, filmmaking or other ways of "taking" indigenous knowledge' (2) [Preposterous claim! They definitely should be taught to do this -- it might save an awful lot of misunderstanding!]: Foucault has said these travellers' tales have contributed as much to Western knowledge as scientific data, and anyway scientific knowledge has often been random ad hoc and damaging.

She has grown up within indigenous communities and listened to their stories about research and researchers and how they were connected with colonisation and injustice, how cultural protocols were broken, values negated, key people ignored. Policies were allowed to intrude, legitimated by research but 'informed more often by ideology' (3). Research was seen as absolutely worthless except for the researchers and this produced 'unspoken cynicism' [which ruins it as ideology?]. But it can't just be ignored or deconstructed.

Indigenous communities still live with poverty and ill health and poor educational opportunities. Adults may be addicted to alcohol, kids to drugs, there may be destructive relationships. They are still fed messages about their worthlessness [no-one gets cynical about that?]. Denial of the historical formations of these conditions have denied claims to humanity and history and 'all sense of hope'. Resistance involves an attempt to 'retrieve what we were and remake ourselves' (4). The past and our stories 'are spaces of resistance and hope'[rather dangerous imaginary ones, easily recuperated? — she agrees they are also 'spaces of marginalisation'].

There is now a 'burgeoning international community of indigenous scholars and researchers' talking about research and methodology, often informed by critical and feminist approaches with political commitments. There's lots of discussion about control over research activity and the knowledge it produces, ethical guidelines and priorities addressing the concerns of the indigenous themselves [ie for and on behalf of them as with all intellectuals] — it is an activism. This book is an attempt to assist it, and to encourage and reconnect with indigenous researchers inside Western education [as borderline persons?]. She hopes for further dialogue. There are no technical issues as yet.

The term indigenous is problematic in collectivising distinct populations. All collective terms are problematic. In New Zealand the term Maori or tangata whenua are used more frequently than indigenous with different origin and tribal terms. Some terms are terms of insults, originally used by colonisers but then politicised, such as 'black Australians' by aborigine activists. Indigenous peoples arose initially from struggles by the American Indian Movement and the Canadian Indian Brotherhood, with the intention to internationalise the experiences, issues and struggles, while recognising real differences. There is a need to enable collective voices and develop an umbrella term in order to learn and share. The shared experience arises from colonisation and denial of sovereignty. There are other meanings, referring to 'colonial literary and/or feminist traditions' (7) where people want to distinguish themselves from original settlers, although their powers and privileges 'are all vested in their legacy as colonisers' [compare with the controversy over the term indigenous in Australia].

There is a clear link with researching, writing or talking back that characterises postcolonial or anticolonial literature, the knowingness of the coloniser, a recovery of ourselves, getting to the underlying code of imperialism and colonialism, and the various constructions of the Other, the rules by which colonial encounters are managed, but viewed this time from the other side. For example the ways in which travellers tales and adventurers' records represented the Other to the audience back in Europe, especially if they told of savagery and primitivism, and represented various mythical portraits, often using terms related to animals. These had wide currency and wide appeal, including to the downtrodden in Europe and the powerless. [So indigenous research puts these straight?].

There are now approaches and methodologies to try and ensure that research with indigenous peoples is more 'respectful, ethical, sympathetic and useful'(9), often influenced by feminism, which have emerged from challenges to the Academy. Some critical questions are still important like who owns the research and whose interests it serves, who designs the questions and how the results might be disseminated. There are also apparently larger judgements: 'is her spirit clear? Does he have a good heart? What other baggage are they carrying? Are they useful to us? Can they fix up our generator? Can they actually do anything?' (10). And indigenous insiders are often judged on insider criteria such as family background, age, gender, religion. Even so, indigenous communities 'will still select or prefer a nonindigenous researcher over and indigenous researcher' sometimes based on a [cultural cringe] factor or suspicion of a hidden agenda. Working these issues through often takes great skill, maturity and experience and researchers 'often get hurt and fail in the process'.

She claims to have picked up a few useful habits as a 16 year old Maori working with her father, a Maori anthropologist working in museums with artefacts, 'a world in which science and our own indigenous beliefs and practices coexisted' (11). She began working in health, again mediating between bureaucracies and communities, realising that many of the indigenous research problems were never addressed by the literature or her own training. She now claims to be an indigenous woman with 'a genealogical, cultural and political set of experiences' (12) [if you need those, there is no hope for anyone else doing indigenous research?]. Her extended family relationships nurtured these traditions, which strengthened links with tribal territories and spiritual relationships, and incidentally made her 'sceptical, cautious about the mystical misty eyed discourse that is sometimes employed by indigenous people to describe our relationships with the land and the universe': she thinks instead that Maori had to learn how to survive and be pragmatic.

One of her tribal links was particularly exploited by the New Zealand Government and preserved a set of grievances — a 'particular dissent line' (13) — while another one came from urban Maori activism in the late 60s, organised around recognising the Treaty of Waitangi. She helped teach Maori language and develop Maori elementary schools, but she writes in the context of the first world.

She does not think that Western education precludes her from speaking from a real or authentic indigenous position, however, nor that hers is a '"nativist"' discourse, contradictory and illogical (14) or 'some modernist invention of the primitive'. This sort of criticism is levelled by nonindigenous and indigenous communities. It resembles the position addressed by Fanon [but no celebration of his border thinking]. She finds it particularly difficult to engage in debates about post-colonialism specifically.

She thinks that indigenous people like her have a presence in the Western imagination especially 'its margins and intersections'. At uni, she found some sort of a home in 'anthologies labelled as cultural studies'. Since then, she has attended meetings and networks of indigenous people and enjoyed debates, speeches silences, oral traditions, showing your face, turning up at cultural events, especially important for Maori, giving a chance to show respect, maybe to consult extended families. Some methodologies see this as integral, with widespread ethical and respectful discussion as necessary parts, as well as writing for academic publications — reporting back and sharing knowledge. Some of her students do this in formal ceremonies involving family or tribal councils; one put his work in a wreath on a casket of a deceased relation; another presented copies of the work to the people interviewed and enjoyed a meal with the family; others are presented to international conferences.

There are paradoxical results of sharing knowledge, including widespread understanding of matters such as the Human Genome Diversity Project, for example (16), including sharing theories and analyses. This might be a better way to diffuse knowledge rather than formal schooling. It would certainly be 'arrogant' to assume that people are not interested in the deeper issues.

Conventional approaches to research often make indigenous students 'very angry' especially if they carry out fairly routine positivist tasks, selecting, interpreting, organising and representing and so on. There are still difficulties working with nonindigenous researchers and academics. Some researchers 'resent indigenous people asking questions' about the research (17) and some are happy to exploit indigenous peoples. However, at least in New Zealand there is some 'bicultural research, partnership research and multidisciplinary research', and there has been clarification of aims and how to research effectively and ethically.

Chapter 1

Imperialism frames the indigenous experience as an all-encompassing version of modernity and it still affects experience now. There is a shared language to describe it. For her, indigenous experience is best articulated through 'imperialism, history, writing, and theory' (20), words of emotion [ie not very precise?]

Columbus is a central figure, accompanied by Cook, who also brought capitalism, western individualism, Christianity and disease; the French who visited Tasmania, different Europeans such as Dutch and Portuguese, and the various military personnel, administrators, priests and colonial officials who followed them. Colonialism is best understood as an expression of imperialism. Imperialism is economic expansion, the subjugation of others, an organising idea and 'a discursive field of knowledge' (21). Economic explanations have been advanced by Hobson and by Lenin, and explanations concern search for new markets and for new resources [OK that's summarised that then-- marxism is only another account]. Exploitation and subjugation of indigenous peoples follow, developed into increasingly sophisticated rules of practice, which vary — confiscating land, military invasion, or signing various treaties, dividing people into different sorts of citizens and offering various kinds of settlements. Imperialism as an ideology might begin with the Enlightenment and involves science, ideas and modernity, and involves science with connections to economic expansion.

Imperialism and ideology extend to the ways in which imperialism has reached into the cultures and minds of the colonised and how they might be able to decolonise and rediscover our sense of 'authentic humanity' (23). This has dominated postcolonial discourse and the idea of 'writing back'. Such writing sometimes arises from a concern for human and civil rights and the need to counter oppression. Colonialism develops as 'imperialism's outpost'. Colonies involves controlling Europeans as well and they represent an ideal image of the West or civilisation [?] [Fanon and others say the contradiction is they can't keep this up for long before descending into appalling violence and oppression]. Though sometimes there are struggles about identity between different Europeans. Sector interests became powerful. Indigenous communities were perceived differently yielding quite often very specific experience.

One theme of critique from within indigenous community draws on authenticity, pre-colonised societies where 'we had absolute authority over our lives' [nice view of mechanical solidarity] (24). Another involves an analysis of how colonisation happens and what it means for the future. Decolonisation involves both. The specifics are sometimes generalised to refer to globalisation or new world orders as world marketplaces develop, requiring new forms of resistance. Sometimes post-colonialism assumes that colonialism is over, leading to some scepticism that this has helped to re-inscribe privileges for nonindigenous persons,  including among academics and researchers.

Late modern and late colonial research still continues. It might be insensitive and offensive, but it is always justified as being for the good of mankind. It is still 'on indigenous peoples… Still justified by the ends rather than the means'. It often implies that indigenous peoples are ignorant or undeveloped. Sometimes traditional remedies are removed and analysed. The same might go for belief systems or healing practices as part of a 'global hunt for new knowledges' (25). There is a new urgency for international agreement.

An old stereotype was that primitive people could not use their minds or intellects, could not invent or imagine, were therefore not fully human, and this was important for imperialism and its classifications of races or societies. There were definite processes of dehumanisation, from violence to ideologies which has centralised different notions of nature or cultural relativity, or savagery. Often the divisions were simple binaries with no understanding of the layers within indigenous peoples, even of mixed-race persons: legislation developed to regulate these.

Violence accompanied attempts to establish independence and decolonisation, justified in the name of restoring order, sometimes natural order, opposed to the disorder, the lack of civilisation that existed previously. Fanon and others point out that colonialism [necessarily] brought disorder and fragmentation.

There has been a need to rewrite the position of indigenous peoples in history, to tell their own stories for their own purposes, to give testimony, to 'restore a spirit, to bring back into existence our world fragmented and dying' via a form of writing or literacy 'in a very traditional sense of the word' (28). The same goes for theorising existence and reality , creating a new national culture and indigenous scholarship. Indigenous history often relates the negation of their own views following colonialism, and a critique of the way history is told from the perspective of the colonisers. 

This has led to more a critique of more  systematic ideas [and some references are given, 30]: 'history is a totalising discourse' [a systematic and coherent whole with its own classification systems, rules and methods]; 'there is a universal history' [humans share fundamental characteristics and values which can be traced]; 'history is one large chronology'; 'history is about development' [especially progress, from primitive, simple and emotional to more rational]; 'history is about a self actualising human subject' [leading to total control of the faculties, including the control of the emotions]; 'the story of history can be told in one coherent narrative'; 'history as a discipline is innocent' [the facts speak for themselves and tell their own story]; 'history is constructive and uses binary categories' [less argument for this I think, based on one binary-- the prehistorical and historical]; 'history is patriarchal' [because only men can attain the higher orders of development].

There are other intersecting key ideas. Literacy is a major criterion for assessing development, and if it develops in places like the East, it is not legitimate. Hegel's notion of people creating their own history simply legitimates his own preconceptions [?]. There is a suppressed notion of Otherness in the notion of being fully human. There is an overemphasis on the rational individual and his manifestation in modern industrialism, so that the people and groups who made history were also those who developed the state and represented a certain class and race.

Indigenous people share their critique of history with post modern theories [The argument actually is indigneous people invented the critique of history shared by postmodernists, but before they did...really? On the surface maybe]. Their contested accounts are found in genealogies, in weavings and carvings, even personal names and systems of knowledge often found in oral traditions. Such histories have often been incorporated, however, in Western views and in early stories, such as Christian versions of myths of origin.

The sharp end of it all is attempts to reclaim land, language, knowledge and sovereignty. This is where history is still important, and where the connections with power are revealed. Indigenous people need to fully analyse and settle the issue of the modern: until then 'there can be no "post-modern" for us' (34). It is not just a scholarly matter about truth. Coming to know the past is crucial if it leads to new ways of doing things. We can often realise this by visiting various sites and telling stories from the past.

Reading writing and talking are fundamental, but academic Western books are often regarded as 'dangerous to indigenous readers' (35) — they do not reinforce indigenous values and identity; they often imply that others do not exist; they often write things that run true; they often say negative and insensitive things. This is often directed against school texts and journals but these 'comments apply also to academic writing'. The same might be said about film like 'The Piano'. Indigenous people often experience fragmented identities — partly in the Third World, partly as women of colour and so on [so do all of us — some nostalgia for community here].

Indigenous peoples sometimes do not recognise themselves in their representations. They can even write that way themselves if they do academic work, so writing can be dangerous. Sometimes, however the language of the coloniser can be appropriated, but at some risk, for example at 'many indigenous peoples conferences where issues of indigenous language have to be debated in the language of the colonisers… The use of literature to write about the terrible things which happened under colonialism… These topics inevitably implicated the colonisers and their literature in the processes of cultural domination' (36) [and the indigenous people using them?]. Some have written in indigenous languages as a result, even if they were mostly oral. However others have argued that it is possible to "write back", and frame the issues differently, but we have to remember that some conventions might not still be acceptable to indigenous audiences [she uses the example of the use of pronouns such as I and we].

There is also a politics of interpretation, asking questions like who writes and for whom. Scientific writing is the most highly regarded, but the imagination can be a better way of 'sharing the world' although there are problems of interpretation [very brief on this] (37)

Indigenous people have often been 'oppressed by theory' which does not look at things like origins or histories sympathetically or ethically. Much of it has not been driven by seeking tangible benefit but by anthropology [which was initially about political control and exploitation?]. Where indigenous scholars have developed their own theories, these have sometimes been activist, but always [?] claim to be 'grounded in a real sense of, and sensitivity towards, what it means to be an indigenous person' (38), making sense of reality, prioritising and legitimating, trying to plan to take greater control over resistance, organising, determine action, allowing new ideas. There is always a need to struggle with oppositional or alternative approaches, however and there must always be some dialogue even with dominant views.

Recovering our own stories of the past is important and so are methodologies and methods of research that help us do this. However, decolonisation does not mean 'a total rejection of all theory or research or a western knowledge' (39, but centring our own concerns and worldviews, even while 'under the gaze of Western imperialism and Western science' [tricky]. We need to escape this gaze and reorder and reconstitute ourselves. Most research is clearly linked to western knowledge and has not been neutral. However, wanting more self-determination and greater participation in what happens to us means there is 'much more active and knowing engagement in research' among many indigenous groups. They need access to the technical and conceptual tools even if they 'make us feel uncomfortable, which we avoid, for which we have no easy response' (40).

Chapter 2

There are lots of critiques of empiricism and positivism [pretty crude reductionist ones] but she wants to focus on white research or academic research, outsider research, which often appears to indigenous people as exploitative [no doubt --but are they right?]. This can affect any study of indigenous peoples and involve cultural orientations, values, different conceptualisations of time and space, subjectivity, different theories of knowledge language and power. Western research draws on a whole archive of knowledge, rules and values. Hall says we use it to characterise and classify, condense complex images through simple representations, develop models of comparison and criteria of evaluation in order to code indigenous people and their societies. There are in fact multiple traditions of knowledge and ways of knowing in the archive, some more dominant than others [typical weasel] and some rules may be more explicit than others. There can also be descent, again some of it only implicit and more manageable. Marxism and Western feminism are examples. Smith thinks Western feminism is not very radical because it has been challenged by WOC. [Then she goes back to an easier target] missionaries considered indigenous beliefs 'shocking, abhorrent and barbaric' (43).

[Then a nice weaselly bit ] Western scholarship itself might have been based on appropriated black experiences and traditions of scholarship: the cultural archive of the West certainly 'represents multiple traditions of knowledge'. (44). The archive is certainly flexible and its systems can be reformulated in different contexts, for example in different phases of colonisation, ending with liberal notions of a shared culture.

Racialised discourses are central, and have been since Greek times, where slaves, or half-human eg mythical others have been central. Eventually, savage humans emerged in explicit discourses, and race became linked to human reason, morality and to science, in modernist racism. There has been a complex intersection with gender, again traced back to various fragments of artefacts and representations and traditions of knowledge, beginning with the Greeks, increasingly legitimated through Christian beliefs and growing through feudal and capitalist modes of production. As a result, it is still impossible for indigenous peoples to speak without using gendered language, especially when using 'English, French or Castilian' (46). [Interesting point this--Maori languages have no gendered nouns or adjectives?]

Western practices have had consequences for indigenous women — they have marginalised them, as became apparent in a recent Maori claim that the Crown had ignored the sovereign status of Maori women and their claims to Chieftainship, which colonialism had ignored. In the process, the claim revealed the limitations of a legal framework inherited from Britain, especially about admissible evidence and valid research; textual orientation privileging the written text over oral testimony; views about science and facts; rules of practice, values and morals including notions of consent, goodwill and truth telling; subjectivity and objectivity and the neutrality of the law; ideas about time, space and history; views about human nature individual, accountability and blame; who counts as speakers and experts; the politics of the Treaty and how they have been managed by politicians and agencies such as the media. All sorts of other coded ideas and systems are included in these ideas which together 'create a cultural "force field" which oppose competing discourses (47).

Western forms of research also contain ideas about humans, selves and groups, and often causal relationships which can be observed. This contrasts with explanations involving connections to an external force like powerful beings or sacred objects, or naturalistic explanations: the change occurred, possibly with Greek philosophy with the development of humanism and the whole separation of humans and nature, mind and body and so on. These concepts have been Christianised and developed further as in Cartesian dualism and subsequent dialectic. For Maori, however the mind or intellect 'is associated with the entrails and other parts of the body', not the head (48).

Ideas are then realised by culture and power. The notion of the individual has emerged after centuries of debate and the development of systems, reification, in this case of Western reality, which was seen as higher order, above primitive societies, universal, civilised, rational. The individual was the basic building block, especially as capitalism developed, but the relation between the individual and the group came to be a major problem involving tension or dialectical relationships. She thinks that Hegel 'has become the most significant model for thinking about this relationship. His master slave construct has served as a form of analysis' (49) [presumably because it is terribly convenient in the colonial context — but if so, it has not been followed through, I assume, to its logical conclusion?]

[We can also cherry pick] Rousseau, apparently influential because he had a romantic and idealised view of human nature as in the noble savage: it was easy to identify the inhabitants of the South Pacific as these, 'especially the women of Tahiti and Polynesia', but these were soon re-categorised as barbaric and savage. [Then there is] social Darwinism which helped us rank societies according to their degree of primitiveness and therefore their survivability. [So these were all convenient justifications for colonialism or things that somehow caused colonialism?]

Western concepts of time and space are often significant for indigenous languages where there is no clear distinction between the two, in Maori language, for example. [but in mundane practice -- Maori have escaped a sensori-motor and pragmatic orientation to the material world?]   Western philosophy and its interest in the relations between time and space, whether they are absolute categories and how they might be measured, which led to disciplines like geography, geometry, and physics became part of our taken for granted view of the world and appear in 'spatialized language' (50), mathematical notions have intruded into social life in the form of public and private space, social classifications of space, theoretical space and so on. It has also affected classifications of the indigenous world, the land and the people, separating the two and giving the land new names. Other bits of indigenous cultures were classified and stored, say in museums, and some were marketed. In one example, a carved Maori house was purchased and sent to the British Empire Exhibition in 1879, and displayed 'according to the aesthetic and economic sense of the exhibition's curators' (52), becoming a methodological curiosity for strange people. It was then sent to England. Finally it was agreed to return it to its original owners. The classification of space led to establishment of fixed stations, mines, ports and a specific vocabulary turning on lines, centres and outsides, and included the loaded notion of empty spaces (53).

The same might be said of conceptions of time and its organisation. Native life was clearly seen as being 'devoid of work habits' (53) with a persistent association between race and indolence. We might contrast Joseph Banks and his journal of life on board ship with his puzzlement about how the native people divided time. There is a clear link between hard work and salvation among early missionaries. Linear views of time are inherent in Western ideas about history, including notions of enlightenment and progress.

There is a notion of distance or separation affecting both time and space, including distance between ruler and ruled, connecting with rationality effectiveness and impersonality, and carrying over into neutral research. Western ideas appear as the only ideas possible to hold,  the only rational ones [certainly the most effective ones technologically], conveying a sense of innate superiority, lending force to the idea of bringing progress. It can also be seen as a form of research which steals knowledge and uses it to benefit the thieves. It can be called racist in assuming an ownership, embedded in institutional practices reflecting power structures. Some unfortunate attitudes still persist, where 'people out there… In the name of science and progress still consider indigenous peoples as specimens, not as humans' (56). [Well yes -- and some still see people as 'hands' or 'resources']

Chapter 3

Imperialism was crucial to the project of the enlightenment and modernity. It both drew everything back into the centre and 'distributed materials and ideas outwards' (58), including knowledge, and representations of the indigenous world. It is still these representations that indigenous people research when they study various academic disciplines: this can be understood as a colonisation of the mind [no reappropriation is possible? No contrast with experience? no border thinking?

Initially, discoveries about and from the New World challenged ideas the West held about itself, and transformed its old knowledge and the validity of these forms of knowledge. Indigenous peoples had as much of an impact as new flora and fauna, and needed to be classified and mapped. Typically, they were ranked in terms of their proximity to the human, whether they possessed a soul, whether they were redeemable and so on. This research was clearly interested in power and domination. The original imaginary line between East and West was drawn in 1493 by the Pope to divide up the world for competing Western states, and again in 1934 in the latest scramble for Africa. Economic colonialism, trade and ideas and images and experiences also helped redefine the Other. These were worked through Enlightenment philosophy and scientific discoveries — 'the indigenous contribution… is rarely mentioned' (60) [Not by those impressed by Islam or Hinduism?] . Other people were seen as research objects, disqualified from the beginning from having a voice, commodified as property, to be collected along with other interesting examples, minerals, territories and cultures [Clifford is cited to describe ethnography as culture collecting] (61).

'In terms of trade indigenous peoples were often active participants, in some cases delivering "made to order" goods', including slaves [only a sentence about that]. Private collections were amassed, and these became sometimes the focus of attempts to reclaim ancestral remains. Collection also involve rearrangement and re-distribution, as in the plant species taken to Kew — 'botanical colonisation' (62). This sometimes led to interference in the ecology of the new environment and even extinctions, including the colonisation by weeds of New Zealand, and the spread of disease, sometimes used as a weapon of war. This was sometimes supported by social Darwinism, and various proposals to preserve threatened races 'through miscegenation and cultural assimilation' for example (62) [the Australian option]: much depended on whether the indigenous group concerned was considered to be redeemable. Some 'very serious scientific views' were developed on these matters. But there are also state policies as well as notions such as '"Manifest Destiny"' (63).

Global knowledge reinforces the West's view of itself as the centre of legitimate knowledge, having appropriated the Mediterranean, Arabic culture, and the Far East, even though these peoples were repositioned as oriental. Other people were denied any role in civilisation. Colonial education, often as missionary or religious schooling at first, imposed this 'positional superiority' (64) often in a 'systematic, frequently brutal, forms of denial of indigenous languages, knowledges and culture'. Some were not permitted to attend school anyway. Colonial education is also used to create new indigenous elites, including sending some away to metropolitan centres.

The traditional academic disciplines were also affected, especially the notion of science as 'the all embracing method for gaining an understanding of the world' (65). Other disciplines were more directly implicated in colonialism, sometimes tested in the colonies like classification systems, including Hegel's [not directly we assume]. The French notion of civilisation itself depended upon a distinction being made between French citizens and savages, and even Freud continued with some of the implications [apparently via Malinowski and the Sexual Life of Savages — but I thought that title was just our marketing ploy]. Other intellectuals have been named as racists by a certain Henry Louis Gates Jr, including 'Kant, Bacon, Hume, Jefferson and Hegel'.

Anthropology is closely associated with the notion of the primitive, however, with an understanding of primitive society as a distorted version of their own. [Far too general? Functionalist anthropology got decidedly relativist?]. They have exploited the hospitality of native people, attempted to civilise savages even under the guise of training them as anthropologists. Geography has also been implicated as mapping racial difference, assisting the military, trying to show links between climate and mental abilities. History has an obvious guilty past especially in developing the history of the colonies, history is written by the victor. Disciplinary boundaries [and here she quotes Bernstein!] permit an independence and the denial of collective responsibility: ethical guidelines have not always applied to research in indigenous communities.

Academic discipline is also extended to disciplining bodies [1 of several references back to Foucault and the convenient slippageto make it fit education]. Overt discipline of the colonised is clear, and includes things like taking land away or redefining it as empty, separating out children of various kinds through the education system, or even forcibly removing children from families. Suppression of indigenous languages continued even after the Second World War.

Some native intellectuals have emerged, trained in the West. They have often been discussed in terms of Marxist revolutionary thought and include liberation writers such as Fanon. They have been able to 'rehabilitate and articulate indigenous cultures'(69) [from the borders?],  but they risk being absorbed by the colonisers and sharing their 'class interests, their values and their ways of thinking'. Some, apparently did feel ashamed of their parents, but the few Maori who went to university in the last part of the 19th century 'are generally viewed positively'.

Intellectuals are important in the struggle to create a national culture, and Fanon says they have to show that they are fully assimilated, then they have to remember who they are and finally to reawaken the people and to align themselves with them. There is a problem, of course connecting with Fanon and his situation: in New Zealand, the indigenous people were minorities and the settlers permanent migrants, and the situation varies elsewhere — for example Pacific Islanders have been incorporated into metropolitan cultures of Australia and New Zealand providing for an increasing cultural homogeneity.

An alternative identity for the intellectual is not so much revolutionary nationalist, but '"postcolonial"' and their place is still problematic, since they have to position themselves strategically, within the Academy, within the indigenous world, and within the Western world in which many of them actually works. Spivak says this produces a constant problem of being taken seriously and that the Academy in particular is very difficult to change. Indigenous communities still see education as being crucial to development and many still want to send their children to university. This produces a real ambivalence and conflict over traditional or Western leaders, and there may be derogatory terms such as '"flash blacks"' in Australia ['wa-Benzi' — sons of Mercedes-Benz — in Malawi]. In New Zealand there was an attempt in the 1980s to re-privilege elders as holders of traditional knowledge, as opposed to younger often better educated members of a tribe: at the moment, better educated Maori still seem to retain close associations with their tribe in 'very fundamental ways' (72) [dodges the issue of conflict?].

Reporters are sometimes surprised to find that representatives of the indigenous people do not dress as natives and therefore do not conform to what is considered to be authentic. Such views are often based in the 19th century. Views of real authentic indigenous people often silence and make invisible groups within indigenous societies like women, 'the urban non-status tribal person and those whose ancestry or "blood quantam" is "too white"' [a note says that blood quantum, not how it is spelt in the text, refers to the amount of native blood one has and is still used in Hawaii to determine eligibility access to Hawaiian lands. It is 'based on racial beliefs that the more indigenous peoples intermarried for more assimilated or "watered down" they became. Conversely if they did not intermarried they remained "pure"' (77). Sounds just like Nazi beliefs about Jewish blood or the 'one drop of black blood' doctrines in US states in the 1930s]. Experts had already decided the aborigines in Tasmania were extinct, so those who claim to speak for them are seen as 'some political invention of people who no longer exist and to therefore no longer have claims' (73).

There has been criticism lately of the claims for women as a universal sisterhood, seen as essentialist by various post theorists. WOC attacked this particularly because it denied the impact of imperialism and racism. The concept of authentic also came under deconstruction, but 'more so from psychoanalytic perspectives', because it assumed that there was a pure and authentic self underneath the oppressions and their consequences. However, academic debates are one thing, but when appropriated by the media and popular press, they can 'serve a more blatant ideological and racist agenda'. The legendary Trinh T Minh-ha has denounced 'anthropologists' for deciding who is racism free and anticolonial.

For the indigenous, the term authentic was originally an oppositional term demonstrating the dehumanisation of colonisation and struggling to reclaim national consciousness, still framed in humanism, but politicised. It appealed to an idealised past before colonisation, and congratulated people on surviving so far, preserving their language and some ownership of the land. 'This may seem overly idealised' but it has a symbolic appeal that may be 'strategically important in political struggles'. [She changes ground as she pleases].  The Western psychological self may not apply directly to group consciousness as experienced in colonised societies anyway, so criticisms of authentic selves might not apply. It is a western tendency to use the criteria as a biological essentialism, and to imply that cultures cannot change or be diverse.

Essentialism in the 'indigenous world' can be strategic, connected to claiming human rights and indigenous rights, but the essence of a person is often discussed in terms of indigenous concepts of spirituality, tracing genealogy back to an earth parent, sharing with other animate and inanimate beings, and essence of life, involving land, landscape: this is the essence of the people, swhich is very different [still essentialism though ]. It has been difficult for the West to accept [there are actually quite commonplace these days in things like Barad or Rovelli]. Christianity attempted to destroy them and then appropriate them, but beliefs about spirituality still represent 'the clearest contrast and mark of difference between indigenous peoples and the West… One of the few parts of ourselves which the West cannot decipher, cannot understand and cannot control… Yet' (74) [These ideas have been popular since the Dawning of the New Age at least, before that with Annie Besant and co., and are quite normal in the wackier realms of quantum physics and feminist materialism].


Chapter 4


Travellers' tales reflect the usual stories of adventure, survival against threatening environments, sometimes to gather new scientific knowledge, sometimes to lead to further missionary or trading opportunities. They were always 'ethnocentric and patriarchal', but sometimes 'perceptive and reflective' (79) often of the imminent changes. Artistic appreciation was also apparent. There were romanticised versions, for example with Pocahontas.

Within New Zealand, they were varied but rapidly organised. Sometimes there was a motive to represent local people as particularly horrendous and evil in order to gain funds to carry out God's work. Some early colonisers were more well-intentioned and became more friendly sometimes to the extent of being reviled by their own societies, forming relationships with indigenous women and being accepted by indigenous hosts. Some became Orientalists. Tasman's first encounters represented Maori as savages and bloodthirsty, and Cook and Banks observed Maori through an 'imperial eye', focusing on the natural resources in NZ, especially the woodland and the possibility of establishing colonies, and observing the people as a value laden kind of 'pre-ethnography' (81). Cook's survey was much more systematic than Tasman's although somewhat arbitrary since it involved naval circumnavigation and extensive renaming.

The Maori themselves told stories about the encounters. The land wars that ensued in the 1860s further blurred the roles of Europeans, as military men then became magistrates or Land Commissioners or even authorities on Maori beliefs and customs, claiming objectivity. A number of books in the 19th century were published, mostly as autobiography. There were more scientific investigations using evidence and data to test theories. Skulls were measured and weighed to investigate primitive minds, burial caves were excavated for artefacts, and 'dried and shrunken heads sold and exported back to museums' (83). This has lead to lasting resentment over the return of items especially the remains of ancestors.

Some more systematic studies, even if amateur, developed in the 19th and early 20th centuries. This developed more sympathy although there was still hostility towards any deviant Maori, mixed with the need to administer an imperial possession. One such researcher was George Grey, who collaborated with local Maori chiefs. Elsdon Best was New Zealand born and developed an ethnology based on meticulous study although he was also a member of the armed Constabulary and a road builder. His research among the Tuhoe is considered to be significant and involve systematic notetaking, checking of sources, interviews with informants and the publications of results, although he was also there to negotiate the building of the road, and attracted a number of reactions, 'openness and generosity as well as occasions of hostility and resistance' (84). He did work hard to try and get access to sacred knowledge and did manage to study the use of spiritual chants to protect knowledge and called meetings to discuss relevant issues. He did pass certain of the tests and barriers set for him by local Maori. This might have been a pragmatic matter and did not go all the way. He did seem to have some [key informants] among the local experts and spiritual people, who were later banned from practice as 'quacks'.

Learned societies grew in Europe, partly to resist the religious dominance of universities, and eventually gained government support. 19th century science assumed there were universal models of human society and participated in ranking societies according to their closeness to the primitive. Various societies visited New Zealand to describe flora, fauna and people. They did practice ethical control, but necessarily reproduced  a 'culture of elitism, the culture of patriarchy' (86). Joseph Banks, a member of the Royal Society when he embarked with Cook, is a good example. Earlier expeditions were driven by different objectives including trade possibilities and the search for treasure. Colonisation however was always linked with ethnography, and there was an early worry of contamination after contact with the West. There was early involvement by Polynesians in a learned society, including an Hawaiian Queen.

New Zealand ethnographers also tried to systematise Maori history, including a chronology of Maori migration. Smith and Best used genealogies of Maori and attributed an average lifespan to each generation. They also introduced the myth of the "Great Fleet" suggesting that Maori arrived in New Zealand in 1300 A.D. A subsidiary myth suggested that there were some Maori from Melanesia who were conquered by more aggressive Maori from Polynesia. This second myth of a more peaceful group before the Maori arrived, implied that the Maori were more aggressive and wiped out this group , the Moriori. These myths have shaped both academic discourse and the understandings of Maori themselves. They legitimise conquest and migration as part of colonisation, as integral to settlement, as natural and universal processes.

There is also notion of cultural decay following the impact of the West, characterised by population decline, acculturation, assimilation, and hybridisation, leading to hopelessness. For indigenous people, there is a different emphasis: contact, invasion, genocide and destruction, resistance and survival, recovery leading to hope and optimism. Without doubt there is a process of land and resources being stripped by the state, marginalising the indigenous, having policies imposed on them. There was [amnesia] among academic communities which led to much subsequent confrontation and opposition to the presence of researchers.

These days, globalisation and the expansion of the market sets the terms for the debate. A major implication for the indigenous people concerns the trade of human beings, artefacts, artworks and other cultural items. To see these as trade assumes a two-way transaction, though, and indigenous peoples prefer to say that their possessions were stolen. Claims have been usually framed within the Western juridical system, so that the price for land has been denounced as outrageous (100 blankets and 50 beads for 100 million hectares of land), or by invoking statutes of limitations international agreements and so on. These have been variable but above all they have destroyed the idea that there is a material connection between people, places, language, beliefs and practices and instated commercial values and the idea of trade — 'trading the Other' (89) which became a vast industry and covers ideas, language, knowledge, beliefs and fantasies as abstract matters. Bell hooks has called this 'eating the other'. and says that even some black politics incorporates the idea and sees identity as a matter of consumption. New Right politics in NZ  have also tried to commodify knowledge, customs, land, titles and even fauna and flora, in regional free trade areas.[For marxists, the Anglo-Scottish bourgeoisie did this first with 'clan land' in the Clearances --'clan' meant it belonged to the clan chief who could then enclose and sell it]

From 'indigenous perspectives'(90) the distinctions between categories of colonisers, scientists and travellers, say are less relevant than those based on who were friends and who were not. We see this in discussions on '"the indigenous problem"', a recurrent theme about how to deal with indigenous peoples, found within all the wider discourses of dealing with the Other. It is a fertile area for discussion and research, beginning as a militaristic or policing concern, managing rebellions, discrediting leaders. This goes on today with indigenous activists, even with passive resistance. In New Zealand, indigenous peoples were sometimes rounded up and put on reserves, and eventually social policies were developed to remedy the problem, based increasingly around notions of cultural deprivation or deficit, with its own supporting academic discourse. There is now a turn to cultural diversity but even here the indigenous can be perceived as a problem, as many are '"inauthentic"' or 'ungrateful'. There is still 'deeply held fear and hatred of the Other' (92).

This seems to be a natural link between the terms indigenous and problem, still, with research often assuming the problem lies with indigenous communities themselves. Indigenous people do sometimes blame themselves and become hopeless. It is not surprising that research and problem also become linked and as a result,people switch off when met with research: 'the word research is believed to mean, quite literally, the continued construction of indigenous people as the problem' (92).

Chapter 5

[I find myself  embarrassed that my PDF version has a page missing -- serves me right for being a cheapskate. It seems to describe life on a contemporary New Zealand Maori settlement, and ends with Smith discussing whether or not anything has changed from the old colonial realities. She thinks not, that Maori are still suffering from poverty, the impact of multinational business, the impact of missionaries and traders and the struggle against them. She is describing a tribe, an iwi, but 'not exactly the generic indigenous tribe' (97)]

There is now a new language of imperialism, based on marketisation, concepts of potential and diversity. There are still evangelicals and traders, and adventurers, but mass media as well. The United Nations still offer imperial armies defending 'freedom, democracy and the rights of capital' (98). There are still notions like '"empty land"' seen in policies to ship toxic waste into the Pacific. There are some new realities, social identities and power alliances. One new term is 'post-colonialism'.

However this implies that colonialism is finished, that the colonisers have left. Even if this is the case literally, the institutions and legacy have remained, however. Indigenous people have changed, learned and are now mobilised around new alliances. They have the collective memory and 'critical conscience of past experiences' and new hope and possibilities. They do sometimes talk about negotiating, reconciling and settling on open dialogue with their rulers. There are also new indigenous elites, which 'still protect the interests of the big Western power blocs' (99) and other indigenous leaders have drifted away from their own indigenous values system, examples of still successful divide and rule.

Scientific and technical advances still place indigenous people and other oppressed groups at risk, the search for cures for diseases, for example, or some other life-saving technology. This threatens the fundamental belief that 'the earth is a living entity' there are certain projects that are particularly threatening, like building dams, destroying rainforests, poisoning the land or the water, pursuing sectional interests threatening indigenous knowledges or appropriating them. Specifically:

1. 'Having genealogy and identity (cell lines) stolen, patented copied' via the Human Genome Diversity Project and similar projects to patent genetic material. One concerns an attempt to patent an individual in Papua New Guinea. Representing this scientific knowledge just dehumanises the theft, since even genes are dehumanised (100)

2. Farming 'the umbilical cord blood of aborted babies', against the belief of many indigenous people, including Maori, that the placenta and afterbirth are still active and taboo, not recognised until recently by hospitals. [any 'good' side to this?]

3. 'Having your cultural institutions and their rituals patented' either by non-indigenous or indigenous individuals, as in an attempt by 'a nonindigenous new age male to patent the North American Indian sweat lodge ceremony', apparently because the natives were not performing it correctly, but clearly in order to profit. Indigenous beauty products is another example.

4. 'Scientific and political reconstruction of a previously extinct indigenous people' (101). She thinks this is possible using genetic material from corpses or mummies, producing 'experimental pure populations'. [Where the hell did this come from?]

5. 'Dying and then coming back to life as a flock of sheep or variety of tomatoes'. That follows from genetic engineering, and already in NZ there has been an attempt to breach sheep with human genetic material in their make up [and it reminds me of Barad's stuff about goat milk with spider silk] to produce milk with genes resistant to emphysema. [any 'good' side to this either?]

6. 'Commodifying indigenous spirituality' (102) already happening with New Age [why hasn't she noticed this before, and how does she know this is inauthentic compared to indigenous experiences?]

7. 'Creating virtual culture as authentic culture'. That is virtual reality instead of actual travel or viewing art collections, a form of farming aboriginal culture, risking stereotypes and dehumanisation.[No 'good 'side again --preserving actual sites, increasing access?]

8. 'Feeding consumption, tuberculosis of the marketplace'. Through television to export American tastes and American culture, so that the young in NZ have become keen on American sports or rap stars, they desire more and more things and have developed the 'autonomous choice' of the consumer.

9. 'Creating sovereign reservations for the elite' (103). This goes against the right to self-determination and establishing sovereign nations within tribal territories. The very wealthy in the West now escape their own urban jungles by moving into their own security zones [and other forms of withdrawal] to disengage from the Other.

10. 'Denial of global citizenship'. Indigenous people are already denied humanity and citizenship, and new global political identities make participation even more difficult in the global world order.

There is still optimism, associated with the new millennium, and the possibility of new international alliances, but there is also a pessimistic view that the legacy of indigenous peoples will be obliterated. One response is 'the renewed focus on warrior traditions' (104) and the need to fight on, to become activist. There are still sites of struggle, maybe no longer over recognition, perhaps more control over 'our own forms of knowledge' [a real displacement I think], over cultural and intellectual property rights. Authenticity is important here [a very flimsy concept to base claims on, as she recognises herself earlier on].

Indigenous people still have their naturalistic worldviews and some of these are being incorporated into things like restorative justice programs, healing circles, community health initiatives, government consultation models, group collaboration[again, easily enough incorporated as private cultural concerns].

Chapter 6

Some indigenous people have carried out research of a particular kind — a 'modernist resistance struggle' (107) developing the priority of survival of colonisation into projects such as decolonising the mind and developing various social movements.

There have been radical Maori organisations, originally developing underground, associated with generational struggle focused on education government policy and nonindigenous society. They have organised land marches, occupations, disruptions of rugby tours and conferences. Key cultural concepts include sovereignty, extended family sub tribal groupings and tried, Maori language and cultural customs. Organisation around the Treaty of Waitangi provided an organising framework.

In Australia, struggles over land rights began before the Second World War and operated together with campaigns for citizenship rights at a federal level. The constitution was changed in 1967. Direct action was pursued including 10 embassies, silent protests and eventually the Mabo court decision which overturned the idea of terra nullius. Retrenchment by Conservative government has also taken place.

Other protests over land rights and language include the Sami, the Basque, and various indigenous peoples in the Middle East Africa, South and Central America, Asia and the Pacific. There is a common theme of self-determination but also more dynamic and complex elements. Culture and tradition have been revitalised and reformulated, Western institutions rejected. There is an interest in a shared international language or discourse [for example negritude?]. It is politicised. There have been struggles over what counts as traditional and how the community should be represented. Several grassroots initiatives have been developed including ones that develop education and cultural revitalisation. Legal challenges have been mounted and sometimes constitutional ones which 'have deeply disturbed the colonial comfort of some states' (111). Some have challenged the very basis of treaties and original settlements.

There have been 'often uneasy alliances with other marginalised groups in society — white feminists, socialists, communists, anti-racists, church activists and labour unions'. Sometimes it involved a quiet replacement by fears of white hegemony and lack of trust. There were parallels with activism around civil rights women's liberation student protest anti-war movements in the USA, and some international links

There have been some international linkages bringing together different indigenous groups including some from Latin America, Canada USA Australia and New Zealand through world conferences. Some of these international relations are claimed to go back 'both prior to and after contact with the West' (112 via trade links and strategic alliances. Empire was taken seriously by some New Zealand activists who appealed direct to the Queen. Indigenous activists sometimes visited each other and organised international meetings. Other organisations such as the International Labour Organisation also adopted indigenous populations.

An indigenous research agenda can be represented in a metaphorical chart of ocean tides [classic vagueness] (116) with four directions based on Maori, representing movement, change, life, decolonisation healing and mobilisation as processes, but also survival, recovery, self-determination. Not sequential of course she tells us [shifty vague open-ended circles 117] . She claims that what makes them specific things like healing decolonisation spiritual and recovery which are 'at odds with the research terminology of Western science', politically interested rather neutral and objective [but she said that was as well].

Indigenous peoples were initially very negative about research, even about its ethical guidelines, and still are if they still refer to Western individuals and individualised property, whether intellectual, cultural or physical. Instead they have stressed collective rights to intellectual and cultural property, participation in the management of projects, control over their own knowledge and an insistence on consent. This has led to several Declarations. In New Zealand they've identified a number of responsibilities which researchers have, based on the code of conduct for anthropologists, referring to protection for the rights of the people being studied. These have been further specified when researching Maori: 'respect people, present yourself to people face-to-face; look listen and speak; share and host people, be generous; be cautious; do not trample over the mana of people; don't flaunt your knowledge' (120). [a note claims that older women are apparently the gatekeepers here 'as they watch, very keenly, what people are doing'] There are other proverbs and sayings which are relevant. Respect is particularly important, and there is a need to be in harmony with yourself and other members of the animal kingdom and elements of nature to show respect. [Sounds like Western liberals then]. [what does this collective ownership stuff look like in practice I wonder]

Chapter 7


[Opens with diary notes, supposedly on articulating an indigenous research agenda at a conference of indigenous people]

Research is highly institutionalised in the Academy and is integrally political. There's a lot of money spent on it most research has been trained and socialised. It's hard to think what indigenous research might look like, so we have to imagine it.

An alternative is currently being articulated. There are distinctly different ways of thinking, although they may not be referred to as research. There is a restrictive practice involved where only experts with qualifications and specialist skills can be called researchers, while communities carry out little projects. Indigenous communities even use special terms such as 'Maori centred research' (125). There are community action projects and there are indigenous research centres and study programmes. University researchers can be important since they 'work within the protection of such notions as academic freedom'.

Community is 'defined or imagined in multiple ways'. Notions have been contaminated by colonisation to mean living on reserves or staying within boundaries, although they can still retain spiritual significance. There can be multiple layers, nested identities involving belonging to various communities, some of them spiritual, united by song as much as territory, locating yourself in a geographical area. This is not the same as the anthropologists' field.

Community projects or action research are aimed at self-help or making a positive difference, solving specific problems. There may be broader communities of interest such as indigenous women. Some communities may have 'a strong suspicion of the outsider… Formal membership… Various language and dress codes' (127). There might be international influences, say with Western feminism. Process, 'methodology and method', is often more important than outcome. The need to be respectful healing and educative means leading by a small step towards self-determination [seems terribly tricky to me].

The term 'tribe' can be used for Maori to describe a larger political entity of several smaller groups 'linked closely by genealogy and shared customary practices' (128). There is tribal research at the moment in issues such as resource management, economic development, education, family and children, traditional knowledges. Sometimes tribes have their own research centres doing archival and historical research or social impact analysis, gathering oral histories. One is managed by the tribal Council and employs several young people with academic qualifications. It has even established a tribal University. Another tribe is in the same process of establishing research centres and graduate scholarships. One interest is in mounting a Treaty claim. There is some evidence that tribes engage in contests with each other over Treaty claims, but this is 'a consequence of being driven by the government agenda for settlement at any cost rather than a reflection of traditional practices' (129).

Lots of indigenous staff and students find universities 'to be toxic'. It is hard to join research groups. Maori have formed their own groups, largely within anthropology or through Maori academic centres in faculties such as education, medicine, law, art history. Maori still constitute 15% of the total population of New Zealand, although their participation rates in universities 'have been extremely low': however where they have participated they have been very successful.

A Research Unit for Maori Education was formed in 1988 University of Auckland to promote indigenous research to make a difference for Maori and to influence educational policy, to develop and train Maori researchers and to disseminate. It took a long time to establish it in the University and there were many challenges about how appropriate it was. Struggles are often expressed in terms of maintaining standards. Eventually, appropriate methodologies, curriculum, and suitable graduate programs were developed. Major research contracts have been gained and international conferences attended [still no examples of what they actually did]. The Unit grew and gained the University support. It became an Institute, although it still faced resistance.

'It is possible to see many of the barriers and glitches which occurred as examples of institutional racism' (133). This can be related to the ways in which 'academic knowledge is structured as well as to the organisational structures which govern the University'. The insulation of disciplines, the culture which supports disciplines, and systems of management and governance protect privileges already in place. Ways of thinking about knowledge can provide a rough passage for any new development [so what makes it racist specifically?] Pressures from the Maori community via the Treaty seem to be important here

They want to train indigenous researchers but without 'destroying people's indigenous identities, the languages, values and practices… It can be an alienating and destructive experience' (134), as a disillusioned student is quoted as saying — she still met white cultural supremacy. Indigenous students needed to employ various strategies like 'becoming as invisible as possible' or the opposite. Many indigenous researchers are self-taught although there are now a number of programs for them, emphasising action research and collective work with staff as an attempt to create a definite 'Maori research culture' (135). Many are encouraged to pick their own topic, use their own bicultural skills if they have them, and to work from strength.

It is recognised that they may need emotional support and reassurance, assistance to reconnect with their own communities, ways of managing 'protocols of respect and practices of reciprocity — the relatively simple task of gaining informed consent can take anything from a moment to months and years' (136) and can involve a great deal of travel to gain trust. Even asking for an interview can be seen as 'quite rude behaviour in some cultures'. Some indigenous elders expect reciprocal storytelling. Sometimes they just play the game. Negotiating entry can be daunting and sometimes researchers have to listen to 'the whole ugly history of research on indigenous people'.

Many of these issues are addressed in terms of insider and outsider research. Feminist research has made 'insider methodology much more acceptable in qualitative research', but for indigenous researchers there are multiple ways of 'both being an insider and outsider' (137). There is a constant need for reflexivity thinking critically about processes, relationships and the data. Insiders also have to live with the consequences on a day-to-day basis and so they need particular support systems and relationships. They have to have clear research goals and lines of relating, to define closure and have the skill to say no.

One of her own experiences involved a community of Maori mothers and children; she was a part of the group, an insider as a mother herself. She had some links to some of the mothers through tribal relationships, but was also an outsider as a graduate student as a teacher and a professional and car owner. She was met with formal cultural practices when she interviewed — homes were 'extra spotless' (138) and food had been specially prepared, kids were ready for bed, signs of respect appeared suitable for strangers. She was asked to keep some matters confidential. She feels she never did these women justice but she learned a lot about research. Insider research has to be humble and the expert role is problematic, especially as an '"official insider"'.

It is particularly difficult to test your own taken for granted views about the community and it can lead to unsettling beliefs and values or even 'the knowledge of different histories… Stories of grave injustice… Discoveries which contradict the image that some idealistic younger researchers sold of elders' (139).

You can build support structures, working with a particular guardian elder, for example, practising with already validated research instruments. It is important to be honest and to express open good intentions, including spelling out the limitations of the project. Generally, the whole thing requires 'energy commitment and protocols of respect'(140) and it can be 'bothersome and tiring'. It is a highly political activity and it can be threatening. Researchers may meet exclusionary devices to manage challenges, including criticisms of research as not robust, not valid, or particularly relating to indigenous criteria — not useful not friendly.

Chapter 8

The main theme seem to be about survival of people, culture, languages, become self determining, take back control of destiny and research can help if it is strategic and relentless in pursuing social justice. A large number of projects which intersect have been pursued, some by indigenous lawyers and constitutional experts, others by women, health workers or social workers and policy analysts. She's going to mention 25 different ones. She's not claiming they are 'entirely indigenous or to have been created by indigenous researchers' (142). Some are based on social science methodologies. Some are multidisciplinary. Others have arisen out of indigenous practices. Some are empirical research, but 'not all' (143) — some theorise indigenous issues and set out spiritual beliefs and worldviews. There is little that focuses on natural sciences or technology [hardly surprising]. She uses Harding's distinction between methodology and method, where the first is a theory about what research does and method is a technique for gathering evidence. For indigenous research, methodological debates concern themselves with politics and strategic goals and it's there that researchers need to clarify and justify their intentions. There is often a mix of existing methodological approaches and indigenous practices. Researchers are often trained within the Academy and they use their common sense understandings as well.

The projects [very briefly described in about a paragraph each]

Claiming. Methodologies have been developed, including intensive research on nation, tribe and family histories to establish legitimacy of claims, often 'constructed around selected stories' (143). Different audiences are addressed, often nonindigenous ones like the court, so some teaching is going on as well. Histories are often rewritten around other priorities

Testimonies, involving oral evidence, often connected with claiming. They sometimes are formal and connected to revealing the truth under oath. They sometimes concerned painful events. They offer a voice of witness. They can take the form of monologue and public performance. The sense of immediacy often appeals to many indigenous participants. Testimony can structure the responses and offers 'silencing certain types of questions and formalising others' (144

Storytelling, now an integral part. Individual stories can contribute to a collective one [groupthink?]. They often refer to injustice, racism and mistreatment and are designed to pass down particular cultures to new generations, and to connect the past with the future and the land with the people. They can represent a diversity of truth [hmm]. They often focus on 'dialogue and conversations among ourselves', and maintain oral traditions that are still important. They can feature 'humour and gossip and creativity' (145) and can tell of love, sexual encounter, war and revenge, via familiar characters and motifs [stereotypes?].

Celebrating survival, sometimes in story form, sometimes in popular music, sometimes as an event. Resistance is celebrated and identities affirmed. Personal struggles are detailed. There may be spiritual sharing in a diversity of forms.

Remembering, especially of a painful past and the responses to it, often punctuated with silences and intervals. There may be no collective remembering if communities were ripped apart. They may be unconscious or conscious obliteration 'through alcohol, violence and self-destruction' (146), ignored by white society. Healing and transformation become crucial strategies in such remembering.

Indigenising, first to re-centre the landscapes, images, languages and stories in the indigenous world, while disconnecting with the secular society, and secondly, deliberately building upon traditions, bodies of knowledge and values, indigenous identity and cultural action as deliberate alternative views, countering negative connotations. There is a link with feminist research and critical approaches.

Intervening, being proactive, becoming involved in change both structural and cultural, for example intervening in Maori education policies, designing new programs and training staff.

Revitalising, indigenous languages through education broadcasting and publishing, as the Welsh language has been. Maori has followed a similar pattern. There may however be several languages. In some areas most of them might be on the verge of extinction as in British Columbia, and there is often little coordination or support, say in literacy campaigns. Indigenous language is 'often regarded as being subversive to national interests and national literacy campaigns' (148)

Making connections, both with other people and to the land and other places in the universe, and to animals, maybe to stolen children as in Australia after forced adoption programs. Restored rituals and practices may involve reconnection to the land, as in burying the afterbirth in the land in New Zealand. Reconnecting with agencies and individuals including researchers is also important.

Reading and rereading of history and colonialism including new forms, including origin stories to replace the usual account of 'important white imperial figures adventurers and heroes'(149

Writing, as in '"the empire writes back" project. There is now a five volume anthology of Maori literature, an anthology of native women's writings in North America, new poetry, plays, songs, often interconnected. Maori newspapers, local publishing houses in Gaelic, new accounts addressing nonindigenous persons, new audiences of indigenous people.

Representing, both in the political sense and more generally as a form of voice and expression. The old paternalism is still present, and representation is sometimes minimal: minority groups are often collected together. There has been a growth in indigenous artists, writers, poets and filmmakers to counteract dominant images, including some by Maori.

Gendering, to redress the 'destructive effect on indigenous gender relations' produced by colonisation (151) as traditional families and life were disordered. It was apparently colonialism 'which positioned its own women as the property of men'. Indigenous women 'claim an entirely different relationship… embedded in beliefs about the land and the universe… the spiritual significance of women… the collective endeavours that were required', so their traditional roles 'including full participation in many aspects of political decision-making and marked gender separations which were complementary in order to maintain harmony and stability' (151 – 2) [bit Panglossian?]. An analysis of colonialism is still crucial for indigenous feminists who demand a restoration of traditional roles, rights and responsibilities, and some did respond to an address on the impact of colonialism at a conference.

Envisioning, where people imagine a future based on the confidence that they have survived and can go forward, they have achieved their dreams in some ways, for example, have achieved some redress under the Treaty. Certain slogans make their spirits soar. They borrow from other indigenous peoples, and 'sayings have acted like resistance codes' (153)

Reframing of indigenous issues, relating them to history adequately, for example and redefining them, including things such as 'mental illness, alcoholism and suicide' and their connections to 'colonisation or lack of collective self-determination'(153). One initiative for young children insists 'it is not a childcare centre but a language and culture initiative' and this affects funding and also connects it with other initiatives. Redefinition has led to differences with Western feminists and the way they locate women and discuss patriarchy — it's essential to include imperialism and racism. There's also been resistance to seeing indigenous culture or indigenous men '"as a group"'. The problem-solving focus has led to more cooperation with men.

Restoring, to combat 'disproportionately high rates of imprisonment, suicide and alcoholism', which is seen in some quarters as 'the continuation of a war' and white domination, and associated with things like high rates of black deaths in custody among aborigines, high rates of morbidity and mortality. The restoration of well-being has produced a range of initiatives like healing circles, victim restorations, new adoption policies and ways of dealing with children which have 'co-opted indigenous practices', holistic approaches 'in terms of the emotional, spiritual and physical nexus' (155) healing, restoring individuals and collectives, sometimes public shaming, but only to provoke an 'individual accountability and collective problem-solving'. She compares these favourably to things like the Human Genome Project.

Returning, which overlaps with claiming, and means returning lands to original owners, and artefacts and other materials stolen and taken overseas. One issue is 'all tattooed Maori heads' which 'apparently number in the hundreds' in museums over the world. There is also a campaign to return traditional food gathering sites or to repatriate people, including adopted children.

Democratising. Many contemporary indigenous organisations were formed after states and governments got involved and so are 'colonial constructions' (156). They have often privileged particular families and elites and males.

Networking [getting really repetitive now] building relationships on a face-to-face basis [does not  mention electronic stuff. Doesn't mention how networks are limited by tribes and other social relations]

Naming as in naming the world, pretty much the same as writing above. Using original indigenous names, as in insisting on Maori names, undoing some of the damage by Christian practices. Maori names are often long and include ancestors.

Protecting people, community languages and so on. Requires alliances, staying alive, staying off booze, protecting sacred sites although some of become tourist spots [so the usual dilemmas?]

Creating, not just artistic endeavour but using your imagination, dreaming new visions and so on. It can be collective, it might be problem focused. It used to be really good before colonialism. It still has something to offer the nonindigenous. Communities still 'know the answers to their own problems' (159).

Negotiating, that is 'thinking and acting strategically' [as well as all that spiritual stuff?], Being patient, going for long-term survival, there is a lot of 'dignity and acceptance of a specific reality' even though there was also a lot of force and little choice. There should be lots of respect and self respect. Negotiation has long been part of trading practices and basic communication. It is ultimately based on 'faith in the humanity of indigenous beliefs values and customary practices' (160).

Discovering, especially Western science and technology and making it work for indigenous development. There are still few indigenous scientists who have remained in indigenous communities. Many indigenous students have struggled with Western science which has been seen as traditionally hostile to indigenous ways of knowing. In schools especially. There is now debate about Constructivism, and developments such as 'ethno-science' and this might 'interest indigenous peoples' especially if it applies to environmental management or biodiversity and helps them engage with what seems to be most relevant.

Sharing [lots of repetition again] which acknowledges the collective needs, networks, costs and community. Local newspapers and radio stations are important, and help compensate for the failure of educational systems. The results of research can be shared although community gatherings can be 'a very daunting forum in which to speak about research… Often the audience need to be involved emotionally with laughter, deep reflection, sadness, anger, challenges and debate… [Requiring]… A very skilled speaker' (161).

This is not a definitive list there are lots of other collaborative projects with nonindigenous people and these help to develop a trained workforce there are also more standard types of research and methodology, summing critical ethnography. This collection might give the message that there are certain issues that matter and processes and methodologies that can work.

Chapter 9

A case study. Maori people began their own research initiatives in response to Waitangi, because the language revitalisation movement Te Kohanga Reo [TKR] and because of the development of more critical and reflective approaches in social science partly based on feminist and critical theory. [Looks pretty much like a PhD thesis]

The cultural archive in the West does enable self critique, although researchers claims to be objective, value free and scientific 'is taken for granted by many social scientists' [who did she have in mind?], Positivists (164). Debates have raged about methodology and method, concerning the validity and reliability, aims and the role of research. In the 1960s critical theory developed, as did social movements in Civil Rights, anti-Vietnam, feminism and student unrest. The same went for indigenous peoples including protests over the Treaty of Waitangi, land marches, tent embassies and petitions in the case of the Maori. This was indigenous activity rather than Marxism but similar questions were being asked, about knowledge and power, research and emancipation. Imperialism, education and development were being examined together with the struggles for self-determination.

Feminist and other radical theories took on positivism in particular, but white feminism was challenged by WOC and indigenous women, denying that women shared universal characteristics and that there was universal oppression. Issues of voice and visibility were raised at international conferences. Critical theory was rebuked for failing to deliver emancipation for particular oppressed groups, especially in not recognising patriarchal practices in the Academy. This led to what Lather has called post positivism [pretty old stuff here] designed to emancipate and deconstruct not just understand, but even this leaves out organic and indigenous approaches to research. These often derived from Freire, which might still be seen to be Western.

Other women, including black women have suggested oppression takes different forms and that there are interlocking relationships with race, gender and class which may not be understood by people without experiencing it — Collins is one of these arguing for a unique standpoint for black women [US ones though?]. This intersects with Maori attitudes and has been used for  Maori women.

The Waitangi Tribunal provided a concrete focus over colonialism and helped develop research programs to inform claims, often dependent initially on retired persons or a few skilled researchers, often without university qualifications and operating with limited funds. Research originally required archival material, land records, oral histories, and later, ownership of lands and state assets. The Crown was hardly neutral in these efforts. Maori language and cultural knowledge was also crucial and this was enhanced by TKR, building on the notion of the extended family rather than the tribe. A national administrative centre was established, and research was discouraged at first in favour of autonomous problem-solving, one of which included information gathering.

Maori resisted social science research because they were disadvantaged by it and this led them to challenge it and its presuppositions, and led to useful connections with the other challenges to European superiority. Ethnocentrism distorted Maori social reality and produced 'ideologically laden data' (170). It left Maori people disconnected from their oral traditions and lived reality, especially when research became 'part of a body of common knowledge that is taken for granted' [the examples show how European conceptions even seem to have penetrated origin myths, which were Christianised and gendered, and became part of common sense]. This 'most accessible material was not written by Maori' (172) [the sources seem to be material written for schools]. Recently Maori organisations have carried out their own research.

Earlier voyagers including Cook were impressed by the sophistication of Maori thought including their spiritual concepts, and one of her own early research projects established that knowledge was specialised, but also essential to collective well-being. Colonisation was 'a stripping away of mana (our standing in our own eyes)' and the 'right to determine our destinies' (173), one aspect of which was defining legitimate knowledge. A hostile and negative attitude to research among the Maori has followed. They are now asking questions such as who defines the research problem, who finds it worthy and relevant, what knowledge the community gains, what the researcher might gain, what the positive outcomes might be in and the negative ones, how the  negative ones can be eliminated, to whom is the researcher accountable, and what processes are in place to support all concerned. Above all, why should individual researchers have an inherent right to knowledge and truth and should we just allow them to claim that they can pursue it rigorously?

Because Maori people have to move into schools or health systems, researchers have had a point of entry. They've often been engaged in crisis research 'supposedly solving Maori problems' (174) which is often involved in making 'huge inferential leaps in generalisations' about the rest of Maori society. Individual informants may not be at all typical however: informants may be unwilling to reveal too much, neither admitting lack of knowledge but also not prepared to assert influence or dominance, unable or unwilling to explain Maori knowledge as such.

There have been many ethical abuses of research, many scandals, such as those involving experimental treatment of cervical cancer in NZ in the 1980s, or experiments on a black male prison population in the USA. Many social science research projects still show little concern for the people who participate, and fail to improve the conditions. Many still appear to be stealing knowledge. Many have had to distance themselves from experimental control research models. Research does have a power dynamic. The interpretive framework may be both overtly theoretical and covertly ideological, containing 'assumptions, hidden value judgements, and often downright misunderstandings' (176). Maori often insist that researchers inform the research about themselves, that they respect people, or keep out of researching Maori issues, and this is required alternative ways of thinking about projects:

Researchers may have to avoid dealing with the issues with Maori; learn Maori language attend meetings, become more knowledgeable; consult with Maori to seek support; make space to bring more Maori researchers and voices into the organisation. There may be positive and negative consequences. Other models have been suggested: the mentoring model 'in which authoritative Maori people guide and sponsor the research'; the adoption model where 'researchers are incorporated into the daily life of Maori people and sustain a life long relationship; 'a "power-sharing model"...where researchers "seek the assistance of the community to meaningfully support the development of the research enterprise"'; 'the "empowering outcomes model" which addresses the sorts of questions Maori people want to know' (177).

Even here, researchers can still exercise intellectual arrogance, evangelical or paternalistic practices, even if they are following qualitative or ethnographic methods because the assumptions behind them can still be problematic. They can also follow bicultural partnership research involving both indigenous and nonindigenous researchers, sometimes with a division of labour, sometimes with more complex structuring, but here careful negotiation is required.

All the models assume involvement by indigenous people, 'in key and often senior roles' (178), but increasingly indigenous communities have demanded exclusive involvement, limiting non-Maori to training and empowering Maori researchers — Kaupapa Maori [KM] research.

Chapter 10

Western research has had an unfortunate history for Maori and they have to be convinced of the value of it. There is a new approach called Kaupapa Maori [KM], where Maori people, communities of the research and of the researchers are engaged in dialogue about research, its priorities policies and practices.

KM has other applications too [teaching for example]. You may have to be pro-Maori. It's not so easy to decide if you can be non-indigenous and non-Maori — some might say you can if you position yourself properly. One characteristic is that it is '"culturally safe"' (184) guided by the mentorship of elders and Maori researchers, although it also has to be rigourous research. It has to be culturally sensitive, and stemming from a Maori worldview, rejecting ideologies of cultural superiority. It has to relate to provisions within the Treaty which allow for Maori control over education. Nonindigenous people have an obligation to support it as partners and they should also be useful allies and colleagues. The Maori should be empowered control their own investigations.

KM is based on an alternative conception of the world, an alternative code, based on the concept of Whanau [extended family], which will also affect the organisation of handling research as well as the conception of knowledge. It must relate to being Maori, connecting to philosophy and principles, the importance of Maori language and culture and the struggle for autonomy.

Most of the discussion also refers to 'critique, resistance, struggle and emancipation', and is rooted in anti-positivism which props up existing power structures and inequalities through concepts of common sense and facts. Some spokesmen have linked this to debates by Ellsworth and Giroux about critical pedagogy and emancipatory goals [in the context of the failure of critical pedagogy, apparently]. However, KM is a more local positioning, a more specific context rather than the general debates about the emancipatory project and its idealism, emancipation as a universal recipe. This implied that Western notions had to be followed to the letter. Political projects in real life are characterised by '"dirtiness"' and sometimes violence, complexity and contradiction, strategic positioning.

Identity is important, identifying as Maori, but this does not rule out being systematic, ethical and scientific. Again the debate has been developed best in terms of feminist research, which maintains a focus on gender but has moved away from the idea that only women can carry it out — that was essentialist. KM may be heading in the same direction. If whanau is central, as a way of organising a research group and a way of debasing ideas, it also has a 'pragmatic function' (187) in distributing tasks while keeping Maori values central, and it is here that nonindigenous people can be involved.

The revitalisation of Maori language has revitalised forms of knowledge as well. However the modifying concept kaupapa suggests a way of framing and structuring Maori knowledge, reflecting on it and also critically engaging with it and its different constructions, leading, for example to a new questioning by Maori women of the accounts of Maori society provided by men, although still keeping a distance from white feminism. There are implications for the funding of research, which in New Zealand is still largely directed through the state via separate foundations, ministries and departments which tend to emphasise government objectives. Recently a shift towards neoliberalism has had profound implications, not least of which is a 're-inscription of positivist approaches' (189).

A reconciliation between positivism and KM seems impossible, which has led to wider debates through the Treaty to win space from both the government and from the 'community of positivistic scientists' (189) and the common sense of the rest of society. KM is marginalised. It does have some obvious applications such as the development of Maori health research. Conventional approaches have failed, as they have in educational research, and there is a need for more culturally sensitive approaches, some of it within a KM framework. The focus is on achieving the task, with the choice of methods secondary, although positivist research is better at attracting funding.

Overall, KM research may not have its own distinctive paradigms, and it may be unwise to assert one, engaging comparisons with Western science. At the moment it seems content to offer a field of study defining what needs to be studied and suggesting questions and possible values and knowledge which might be valuable. It's eclectic. It engages in struggle. It is selective in its focus, not interested at the moment 'in nuclear physics but we are becoming interested in genetic science' (191). [see the comments on decolonising the curriculum in NZ]

KM thinks that research should make a positive difference for the research, unlike the research of the past. It must address issues like respect and sharing, networking and whanau, shared control maximum participation [I bet this is really difficult in practice]. Some tribes have rigourous processes and variable relations with outside researchers. The involvement of young Maori researchers has helped. There are support systems in some cases and variable training.

She has raised a list of priorities at a conference — determining research needs and priorities, training researchers, discussing ethics, developing culturally sympathetic methods, reviewing the literature, educating the wider research community, producing reflection and evaluation of Maori research. This list was apparently taken back for further debate and led to further discussion on strategic plans for Maori health research. KM has at least provided a space for dialogue in several other disciplines. It has also helped Maori researchers investigate the 'fear and antagonism by indigenous peoples generally, and by Maori in particular' (193) and by further understanding how research can help, have questions might be framed differently priorities ranked differently how people might participate differently.

Conclusion


Maori concerns were summarised in a paper for the National Research Advisory Council a top policy body. In the same year she did her first postgraduate research on Maori women, known to her personally. She had found little help in the standard methodology books, very little relevant discussion of cross-cultural issues, assumptions that the researcher belonged to the dominant group, little discussion of problems for women researchers, romantic accounts such as those in National Geographic. The idea was that you needed special skills to be culturally sensitive and gain entrance. There were few critics of methodological approaches and those that were were primarily about African-American scholars. Other research by Maori seemed problematic because they were written as if they were outsiders and they were all men.

She soon discovered an anti-research and cynical discourse among Maori. People were interested in talking about their lives and finding out what people who were just like them thought. She was entrusted with information including highly personal material. She was already acquainted with the need to be careful, respectful and discreet.

Later, as an admin coordinator, she was readily accepted, but did not get involved in politics. She was able to explain the intricacies of both sides, and noted that the community used completely different frameworks from the officials and this caused official exasperation. Communities on the other hand were able to 'deconstruct official talk with ease' (198) and were far more likely to be positive and optimistic and believe in themselves. They wanted positive answers rather than endless concerns, answers to their questions.

She began to think about the role of research for Maori. She began increasingly to define herself as Maori. She realised that 'the common sense practices' which she had encountered 'needed to be talked about and privileged as processes that were important' (198). Other indigenous people she has met came to the same conclusions. They were alienated by tertiary education, not stimulated, many chose to remain or go back, to be proud of their identity and have taken part in small initiatives to provide indigenous people with space. Research is not just something which anthropologist do — 'our questions are important. Research helps us answer them' (199).