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A Final Summary

A final summary of my Reflective Journal writing

Ideas that Rocked or Enriched my world.

Historical counter narratives and history weighted in the dominant perspective: Linda Tuwhai-Smith.

Marsden’s first Aotearoa speech: Years and years of Western historical documentation and dialogue weighted in the dominant perspective, generates a very biased historical account. Jones & Jenkins.

Blood memory (knowledge passing through generations), and heart knowledge (relationships and connections), Archibald.

Research ON Indigenous communities rather than WITH, Bishop /Menzies.

The power a single story has to dehumanise and disempower, Chimamanda Adichie.
Understanding the value of ‘oratory knowledge’ through validated practices like, Talanoa, Tunufai, Laumua.

Both common and Māori law draw from stories, one serving the objectives of English communities, the other, comes from different sources, and serves the circumstances and aspirations of Māori. (Lee, 2008, Metge, 1998 &, (Cavino, 2019, pg. 95).

The underlying structure of academic writing, and of reasonable public discourse, is stating what you believe while listening to others around you.There is no need to play it safe. Birkenstein & Graff.

The Indigenous ‘problem. Traditionally Indigenous research in Western paradigms has a negative focus, when it simply gathers data to strengthen Western perceptions of marginalised people, giving power to disharmony, advancing alienation and lack of relationships. Wilson.

Avoid making ‘I’ statements as this can be interrupted as expressing subjective and self-indulgent opinions, rather than a presenting a well-grounded argument. Birkenstein & Graff.

Words themselves are like music, laughter, crying, playing, dancing and other forms of expression, that have the power to heal or harm. They can transfer information and enlighten others, but they can also be used as tools of social control and disempowerment, Wilson.

Yes, But.... Challenging Ideas.

‘Western expert’ outsider solutions to combat Indigenous problems. Wilson.

Outsider/ insider frameworks and my positionality in regards to the RAW mahi. I have always seen myself on the inside of this work, as I navigate the framework of the oppressive correctional processes.

Emancipative theory:
However, in many ways the radical/emancipatory approach is perhaps the more insidious for it purports to side with Māori struggles, yet insists that Māori people are an `oppressed minority ’ . Bishop, pg.213.

‘Shared speaking’ is framed to only be the desire of the dominant, Jones & Jenkins.

That to walk away and simply deliver an out of gate model of care, based on the ‘insidious perspective’ that attaches to my approach, to not provide advocacy with a purposefully agreed and culturally aligned decarceration strategy, will achieve nothing purposeful. Such is the confrontational dilemma that exists around these readings (as a white privileged woman), and what I now know as a result of the RAW mahi.

Māori law and the application of this framework within culturally dissident populations. Do these 5 questions actually apply now that marginalisation and anti-social behaviour is a preference, Jones, pg.127.

Why do people in this story do what they do, are their actions determined by:
1 Key values/principles?
2.Past actions (precedent)?
3.Their relationship to another?
4.Actions of statements of people in leadership roles?
5.Something else?

Hyphen: Does the trauma of encountering what is outside the subject, threaten the stability of my ego? Jones and Jenkins.
Will the Hyphen always emphasis the gap of difference and my positioning as a privileged outsider, where I seek to represent the Indigenous voice of the most marginalised communities.

Best Conversations.

Active listening of the teachers (no matter how long-winded), Archibald.

Dilettantish obsession with text’, todays anthropologists verses the Indigenous activism of the past, Menzies.

Researchers become part of the decolonising process, Bishop/ Menzies.

How do we educate our youth? We surround them with community, we give them meaningful experiences that highlight the responsibility to be meaningful, intelligent and kind. We watch for their gifts; we shape assessment to reflect their mastery, that is accomplished in real time. We laugh more, we harvest the hope of aloha. We help each other, we listen more, we trust in one and other again. We have what we need, we are what we need (Myer, 2001, pg.146).

Salesmen for a delusive ballet in the ideals of democracy, equal opportunity and free enterprise, among people who will never have the possibility of profiting from these. Ivan Illich: To Hell with Good Intentions.

Education for freedom, education as a liberatory and transformative practice, and a way of reclaiming traditional knowledge, to sustain a purposeful life. Sarah-Jane Tiakiwai.

Gentleness, humility, carefulness, and ability to proceed slowly, as the foundation required to divest academic power, and return the research responsibility to the community elders and intellectuals, Simpson.

For the storyteller to explain too much, is no to honour you as a listener, Wilson.

An ethical framework for life. A whole of community way of living that is empathetic, relational and thoughtful, and not driven by consumption. Simpson.

Glossary of my favourite long ( and not so long) technical research words.

Ontology: The way we view reality.
Epistemology: The way we think about or know our reality.
In both ontology and epistemology, the relationships form a mutual reality.

Axiology: Ethics and morals.
Methodology: How we gain more knowledge.
Axiology and methodology create the accountability in a relationship.

Method: 'WHAT-did-the-researchers-use-for-their-study’.
Methodology: 'HOW-did-the-researchers-complete-their-study'.

Strategy of Inquiry: We might also call these methodologies, building on methodology to fill in how you arrive at a research destination.

Indigenous Research Paradigm: Knowledge is relational it is shared with all creation, therefore cannot be owned or discovered.

Indigenous Problem: Research that studies ‘Indigenous problems’ demonstrates a bias through choice of topic, methodology and promotion of outside solutions, rather than expanding on or appreciating resources available within Indigenous communities.

Indigenous epistemology: A system of knowledge that is built on relationships between things, rather than on things themselves.

Mātauranga Māori: Māori Knowledge, including traditional concepts of knowledge and knowing that the ancestors brought with them to Aotearoa.

Hermeneutics: Interpretation of language, whether written or spoken, particularly aligned with biblical text.

Autoethnography: Being guided by individual or group experiences, and weaving connections/themes and theory from that.

Ethnography: A scientific description of peoples, cultures and their customs, habits and mutual differences.

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