One of the difficulties I faced in undertaking this research was that it was Pākehā centred but investigated attitudes and points of view relating to Māori. As a researcher, I am Pākehā and the interview participants were also Pākehā. Researching specifically with Pākehā was deliberate, but by definition it meant that those from the dominant cultural group in Aotearoa/New Zealand were investigating themselves. While selecting a narrow group of participants is a legitimate research technique (Tolich & Davidson, 2011), it risks the problems identified by Tuhiwai Smith (2012) that research by dominant groups into issues involving or affecting Māori can further colonise Māori. Despite being aware of this, situations arose where assumptions were made by the researcher or participants that demonstrated both their status as the dominant group and the blindness that dominant groups have to their position.
An example of this situation was found when one participant was asked if they thought it would be possible for Māori and Pākehā to find common ground around fresh water resources. The participant responded:
…I’m not blind to the challenges and the difficulties around, yeah of creating that common space. Common space doesn’t quite do it for me, again the language is kind of tricky.-A
There may have been an assumption in the use of the term common ground which suggested that there was a need for Pākehā and Māori to meet somewhere around half way. But it may be that in this circumstance, half way wasn’t a fair meeting place.
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I just have to say at this point that I’m using resource in relation to water and I think that’s potentially a problematic term because… it’s quite a Pākehā term to use and it doesn’t reflect really the depth of relationship for Māori with water…-D
This participants’ depth of knowledge identified a situation of Pākehā (the researcher) defining water with a set of Pākehā values when for Māori the relationship with water was different.
…I’m Pākehā, I speak as Pākehā but when I use your term resource…. I just want to be acknowledging…. that it’s more than that for Māori.-D
Highlighting use of the term resource in relation to water was important because it spoke to a relationship that participants clearly identified as being different for Pākehā and Māori.
…you have a very different relationship with a resource than you do… if you see it as a toanga and if you have a whakapapa relationship with water, you know, it’s a very different thing than something we use how we want…-D
Perhaps at the other end of the scale though, is the risk that as Pākehā, we romanticise or essentialise Māori views. Not all Māori have a relationship with water that is deeper than the relationship that Pākehā have and many Pākehā have strong spiritual relationships with rivers lakes and the sea as described by King (1999) when he controversially suggested that some Pākehā are no less indigenous than Māori. Participants of course were very aware of the diversity of both Māori and Pākehā views and expressed this understanding throughout the interviews.
…I’d just like to acknowledge the scope of positions within Māoridom as within Pākehā society…-D
…but again Pākehā … is [a] diverse category.-A
Choosing to use the term resource is significant however, because it reflects in 21st century Pākehā the perception held by the first European explorers who came to Aotearoa/New Zealand and assertions by Kahn (1999) and Fernandez-Armesto (2006) that colonisation was a contest for resources. It also recalls James Cook’s description of Aotearoa/New Zealand as a land with an abundance of valuable natural resources (Park, 1995; Salmond, 2003).
Certainly, it is clear that we all make assumptions and many times those assumptions come from a mono-cultural, socially dominant position. This is often seen, as described above, in language which privileges a western Pākehā view. Sometimes the word itself privileges the view and other times it is the meaning of the word that privileges the view. Reference to
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ownership in the Prime Minister’s statement is an example of both, where a role of kaitiaki, as described by Sonny Tau (Bennett, 2012), is sought by Māori rather than the western meaning of ownership that was taken from the statement by many Pākehā.
Many times throughout the interviews, the participants raised the problem of language that expressed solely a Pākehā view, underscoring the importance of language as both a site of cultural dominance and potentially as a decolonising tool.
The ubiquitous nature of expressions of cultural dominance became more apparent to me as the research progressed. Even though I was aware of this from the beginning of the research, I was inevitably drawn to express information in a way that privileged my own background. This highlighted for me the seeming limitless and pervasive extent of a culturally privileged viewpoint. One often obscured by that very same privilege. From a personal point of view, I could only resolve to remain vigilant, as were the participants, of how my own background pre-disposed me to a set of prejudices, many sub-conscious, which reinforced my position as part of the dominant culture in Aotearoa/New Zealand. I felt that the participants had been brave in being so open about their views, as in so doing, they risked exposing their own prejudices, conscious or sub-conscious.
At another extreme, Pākehā who openly express views that are counter to the mainstream, face a wider risk. One participant expressed it in this way:
…the truth is that for a very long time I’ve experienced that Pākehā who stand up on the Treaty are not automatically trusted by Māori and neither they should be, but they’re also not trusted by their own as well, so it is an uncomfortable place to sit…-B
Bearing all of this in mind, I sought to make sense of the information the participants had generously provided.