Tagata o le Moana – The people of Moana: Traversing Pacific Indigenous philosophy in Pasifika education research Jacoba Matapo A thesis submitted to Auckland University of Technology in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Education 2021 School of Education Faculty of Culture and Society Table of Contents ABSTRACT ________________________________________________________________________ 3 ATTESTATION OF AUTHORSHIP ___________________________________________________ 4 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ___________________________________________________________ 6 LIST OF FIGURES __________________________________________________________________ 8 LIST OF TABLES ___________________________________________________________________ 9 LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS _________________________________________________________ 10 GLOSSARY OF PACIFIC TERMS ___________________________________________________ 11 CHAPTER ONE: SETTING THE SCENE AND FRAMING RESEARCHER CONSIDERATIONS __________________________________________________________________________________ 13 RESEARCH(ER) ONTOLOGICAL POSITION: ENTERING THE RESEARCH STUDY _____________________ 13 Why the posthuman turn? ________________________________________________________ 16 More-than-critical inquiries ______________________________________________________ 16 WHY PASIFIKA?___________________________________________________________________ 21 The terminology of Pasifika _______________________________________________________ 22 (Re)Positioning the researcher in the research ________________________________________ 25 RESEARCH AIM AND QUESTIONS ______________________________________________________ 26 CHAPTER TWO: POLITICS OF PLACE IN THE PACIFIC _____________________________ 27 Pacific Ocean: Labels that impact research __________________________________________ 30 Pacific navigation histories: Already globalised _______________________________________ 32 Transnational Indigenous: Reconceptualising ‘Pasifika’ ________________________________ 33 Why Indigenous? _______________________________________________________________ 35 Calling into question the human-subject _____________________________________________ 36 CHAPTER THREE: THE HISTORICAL LANDSCAPE OF PASIFIKA EDUCATION _______ 42 Historical perspectives of Pacific Indigenous education_________________________________ 42 The introduction of western formal education to the Pacific _____________________________ 49 Language and literacy ___________________________________________________________ 51 Christian moral regimes and dualisms ______________________________________________ 52 Curriculum and the nature of knowledge ____________________________________________ 55 An Indigenous science perspective _________________________________________________ 57 The significance of the arts practices in Pacific Indigenous education _____________________ 59 Indigenous Māori education and post-colonial education in New Zealand __________________ 60 Education in the Pacific: Post-colonial and neo-colonial ________________________________ 63 Problematising Education in the Pacific: Contemporary perspectives. _____________________ 66 CHAPTER FOUR: THE EMERGENCE OF PASIFIKA EDUCATION IN NEW ZEALAND ___ 70 Historical perspectives and the notion of ‘proirity learner’. ______________________________ 70 Pasifika education Strategies: The Pasifika Education Plan (PEP) and Tapasā. _____________ 74 Pasifika Education Plan _________________________________________________________ 78 Tapasā _______________________________________________________________________ 82 The critical tradition and Pasifika education _________________________________________ 83 Pacific Education Action Plan (2020-2030) __________________________________________ 86 Pacific Indigenous philosophy to challenge deficit views of Pasifika peoples in education ______ 89 CHAPTER FIVE: MOANA, ONTO-EPISTEMOLOGICAL MILIEU FOR PASIFIKA EDUCATION RESEARCH __________________________________________________________ 92 Why Indigenous Pacific philosophy and being? _______________________________________ 92 Pacific Indigenous knowledge and the tension in colonial discourse _______________________ 92 Postcolonialism and Pacific thought ________________________________________________ 94 Pacific knowledge and research: A decolonising agenda ________________________________ 96 Spirit, life force and flows _______________________________________________________ 100 Relational self and the hologram __________________________________________________ 103 1 Segue into subjectivity __________________________________________________________ 108 Philosophy and metaphysics _____________________________________________________ 109 Chanting Pacific cosmogony and concepts of creation _________________________________ 112 CHAPTER SIX: PACIFIC INDIGENOUS PHILOSOPHY AND CRITICAL POSTHUMAN THEORY ________________________________________________________________________ 115 PART ONE: MOANA ONTO-EPISTEMOLOGY _____________________________________________ 115 Reimagining water-space-body-forces-flows and mobilising Pacific Indigenous philosophy ___ 115 Water _______________________________________________________________________ 117 Water as experience: ___________________________________________________________ 118 Space _______________________________________________________________________ 118 Vā – Space/Time/Matter/Continuum _______________________________________________ 119 Body ________________________________________________________________________ 120 Body - Collective/Individual/Corporeal/Incorporeal __________________________________ 121 Forces and Flows ______________________________________________________________ 122 Rhizome: Difference-in-being ____________________________________________________ 123 Assemblage and rhizome ________________________________________________________ 124 Indigenising research: The new-old ontologies in humanities and education _______________ 126 Different knowledge traditions: Indigenising the posthuman ____________________________ 127 Fagogo ______________________________________________________________________ 131 Performativity as expression _____________________________________________________ 133 Pacific-Indigenous -knowing-in-more-than-textualised-language ________________________ 135 PART TWO: PACIFIC INDIGENOUS AND POSTHUMAN THEORY (NEW-OLD ONTOLOGIES) ___________ 136 Onto-epistemology of research(er) ________________________________________________ 140 Research(er) expressions of Samoan cosmogony _____________________________________ 142 Processual ontologies: Distinguising between Immanence and transcendence ______________ 145 Posthuman trajectories _________________________________________________________ 146 Posthuman and anti-humanism ___________________________________________________ 147 Postcolonial and posthuman critical theory _________________________________________ 147 Pacific research: A posthuman critique ____________________________________________ 149 CHAPTER SEVEN: REIMAGINING PASIFIKA EDUCATION RESEARCH ______________ 152 PART ONE: PACIFIC RESEARCH ______________________________________________________ 152 Anthropology and Archaeology discourse: Traversing politics of difference ________________ 154 Pacific Indigenous Knowledge: Colonisation and education ____________________________ 157 Re-Thinking Pacific Education Initiative by Pacific Peoples (RPEIPP): Pacific education scholarship within the region_____________________________________________________ 161 Problematising Pacific education research __________________________________________ 163 Problematising the Politics of Pasifika education research in New Zealand ________________ 164 The neoliberal university and the politics of research. _________________________________ 169 Knowledge capitalism and the knowledge economy: __________________________________ 171 PART TWO: PASIFIKA EDUCATION RESEARCH METHODOLOGIES _____________________________ 172 Pasifika research methodologies: Affirming Pacific philosophy in research ________________ 175 Deterritorialising and reterritorialising Pasifika education research through Pacific Indigenous philosophy: Mobilising Moana onto-epistemology ____________________________________ 178 Affirming Moana materiality as part of the collective in Pasifika education research _________ 179 CHAPTER EIGHT: CONCLUSION _________________________________________________ 181 Affirming Pacific Indigenous Philosophy in Pasifika education research __________________ 181 Limitations of research: Opening research to non-representation and non-dialectic thinking. __ 185 Our future-past is already present: Possibilities for research ___________________________ 187 REFERENCES ___________________________________________________________________ 190 APPENDIX: DIGITAL LINKS TO AUDIO AND VIDEO RECORDINGS _________________ 211 2 Abstract This thesis, exploring past and potential of Pasifika education research challenges both traditional notions of Pacific Island cultures as immutable and European assumptions regarding subjectivity, knowledge and ethical relationships. The study brings both Pacific Indigenous philosophies and Posthuman theory into conversation, confronting the Eurocentric individualistic universal human subject position that has permeated research processes and practices within the academy. The unique transnational position of Pasifika is conceptualised and considered within the context of New Zealand, affirming tuakana-teina, teina-tuakana relations between Pacific