Material y Métodos
E N RELACIÓN A LOS RESULTADOS
When attempting to (re)conceptualise something, it is necessary to consider how the new conceptualisations generated fit with the current/original/prevailing understandings ascribed to that entity. It is easy to see how concerns then arise that projects such as this one will ‘throw the baby out with the bathwater’ so to speak. However, that is not the intention of this project. Instead, the project seeks to collectively and constructively build upon, extend and enrich traditional narrow understandings of literacy, not to overturn and replace them – there would be no sense in that. It is important at this point to make clear the relationship between conventional literacy and the additional dimensions of literacy that Pasifika participants spoke of in their contributions to the project.
Overall, for the majority of the Pasifika participants in this study, conventional literacy (reading and writing) is an important contributor to, but is not sufficient in itself for, enabling Pasifika success as Pasifika in Aotearoa New Zealand. Western conceptions of literacy’s promised benefits include reaching one’s goals, developing one’s potential, and participating fully in one’s community. To this, we can now add the Pasifika perspectives gained from this study – that being ‘literate’ should also bring about: thriving communities; people strong in identity, able to respond confidently and competently in any given situation based upon a firm set of shared values; and people equipped to build up their immediate and extended families and local communities through service, advocacy, and the financial benefits of improved education and
employment opportunities. In order to achieve these aspirations, being able to read and write alone is not enough.
The findings of this study point to the core importance of reading, writing, and speaking ability in Pasifika heritage languages in any conception of ‘literacy’ for Pasifika in Aotearoa New Zealand. Participants have also pointed to the role of conventional literacy abilities in preserving, valuing and passing on Pasifika languages by means such as
intergenerational learning.
Literacy has been perceived as being synonymous with culture, tradition, world view, languages, and ways of knowing. In the perspective of Aboriginal peoples, literacy is not restricted to the written word; the true meaning of literacy is not confined to the page (Paulsen, 2003:23).
The above quote represents the sentiment of many indigenous scholars, and has also been strongly paralleled in this study’s findings. While the storage, transmission and communication of knowledge through the printed word remains central to this project’s
conceptualisation of literacy from a Pasifika perspective, the study also firmly values and situates other culturally-defined forms of literacy at the core of ‘literacy’, alongside reading and writing.
As Dunn (2001:679) reminds us in the Australian Aboriginal context, “school literacy practices are only a selection from the broad range of community literacy practices”, with many of these differences stemming from the understanding that “oral and literate cultures manage knowledge in differing ways”. Thus, as well as alphabetic systems, the Pasifika conceptualisation of literacy incorporates and validates all the other symbol systems and technologies for shared meaning making and shared communication that are relevant to the particular Pasifika communities. In other words, literacy, … rather than only being about the
development of particular kinds of print-based skills, can helpfully be conceived as participation in a range of valued meaning-making practices, and that these practices are themselves nested within particular activity structures that index desired purposes, roles, and identities
(Hull & Moje, n.d.:1).
Thus, the relationship between conventional literacy (reading and writing) and other forms of literacy, as expressed within the Pasifika participants’ construction of literacy, is that these added dimensions serve to enrich and expand traditional understandings of literacy and its role and function. Within a sociocultural understanding of literacy it is understood that for an individual to become ‘literate’, ‘literacy’ must be conceived of as: functional, relevant
and meaningful for individuals and the society in which they live. It must be able to meet the needs
of individuals for their own social purposes and goals. (Schieffelin & Cochran-Smith, 1984:22,
cited in Dunn, 2001:681).
In our own context in Aotearoa New Zealand, it involves situating Pasifika forms of literacy, knowledge, skills, and value bases in their rightful place at the heart of the understanding of ‘literacy’ as a tool for success as Pasifika in Aotearoa New Zealand. These additional and multiple cultural knowledge, skills, and values bases effectively stretch current conceptions of literacy, enabling it to be broader and more culturally inclusive than previously conceived – and therefore allowing it to be more
meaningful, desirable, and useful to Pasifika in living their daily lives as Pasifika in Aotearoa New Zealand.
The Canadian Aboriginal Rainbow/Holistic model of literacy (George, 2003) specified the many interconnected literacies in existence within an indigenous aboriginal world view. Similarly, the collective contributions of Pasifika participants in this project have demonstrated the rich way in which multiple bodies of knowledge, values, skills, ways of being and doing, multiple modes of communication, and multiple layers of relationship and human interconnectedness are all woven together into the Pasifika conceptualisation of ‘literacy’. Pasifika participants have also shared insights into how, when this holistic ‘literacy’ is applied in health, education, language, culture, identity, relationships, and the economic, political, and inter/intra-cultural realities of Pasifika peoples, ‘success as Pasifika in Aotearoa’ becomes possible.
The question that should then arise is: how can the full extent of these diverse forms of literacy be made accessible to and attainable by a Pasifika learner, throughout their lifetime, to draw on and to utilise to enrich their lives and bring about the kinds of holistic ‘success’ that they aspire to?