Procesamiento de los datos, análisis y hallazgos

An innovative feature of the consultation process was to travel to three of the four sites with a fellow Māori doctoral student and colleague also undertaking doctoral study in the area of Māori mental health. This colleague had considerable experience as a contract researcher and had recently been part of a very successful research project involving tangata whaiora. Her field experience in terms of making initial contact with

potential research participants was just one of the many skills I hoped eventually to learn.

As alluded to briefly above, Māori have a preference for working with someone they know. Dewes (1975) states that it is a common practice in establishing contact amongst Māori to ask someone local, known and trusted by their networks, to set up the first face to face contacts. It was my belief that as a researcher I would have access to key informants in their professional roles with little difficulty. Having worked in a professional capacity for the public service prior to undertaking the PhD, I understood that making oneself available to researchers contributed to the “public good”, therefore I was confident that if approached appropriately, these professionals would make the time to be involved as participants. For many of the government officials, health managers and academics, first contact was made through letters of introduction, on Massey University letter head and bearing not only my contact details but also those of my supervisors (Appendix 2). These letters were followed up by phone calls and/or emails, and upon confirmation of their interest in this research an interview time was scheduled.

While I was confident in my approach with key informants, I was more circumspect with approaching the community based Māori mental health providers as indeed was my colleague. We decided relatively early on to work together for our respective consultation phases wherever our study areas overlapped. Realising our relative youth and inexperience as both researchers and more importantly as Māori researchers, our primary reason for travelling and working together during this consultation phase was to offer each other support and what Stokes identifies as the highly valued elements of “cooperation, reciprocity and mutual assistance” (Stokes 1992, p.1). In the same paper Stokes exhorts Māori researchers to work in pairs, as in the traditional manner, of kaumatua and apprentice. Stokes argues that it is “unwise and unfair” to expect a new Māori researcher or new graduate to undertake a complex task such as research without support from a more experienced researcher (Stokes 1992, p.17). While I was fortunate to rely upon the experience of my supervisors “back at the University” for matters academic, in the field when initiating contact with providers and other research participants, it was my colleague who was able to offer the benefit of their experience both of the mental health sector and of working and researching with Māori.

In Tauranga however I was accompanied during my consultation and negotiation phase by my mother who variously acted as mentor, advisor, wise counsel and support. My mother had grown up in Tauranga and while we reside outside our iwi rohe now, she was able to recall people and make whakapapa links during our meetings with providers. Many Māori authors have discussed the importance of establishing a relationship of trust and accountability when working with and particularly researching Māori communities. A long legacy of “researching on” Māori has resulted in what Linda Smith describes as “a deep distrust and suspicion of researchers by Māori communities” (Smith 1991, p.8). Having my mother there, with her wide knowledge of our family and its history helped to quickly break down the barriers the providers might have naturally thrown up upon hearing of yet another researcher wanting to undertake research about “them”. As a result of being able to discuss shared whakapapa and shared childhood experiences with my mother, providers accepted me as a researcher with ease and a relationship of trust was established very quickly. Māori communities being as they are, we were actually able to find whakapapa connections to all of the Tauranga providers we approached to participate in the research.

A second reason for working with my colleague was that we both subscribed to Koro Dewes’ view that Māori prefer to work with someone they know or have been introduced to by someone who is highly regarded. I was fortunate in that my colleague had for a number of years managed a mental health service in Christchurch and therefore had quite extensive knowledge of the providers in the area. She was also highly regarded by those self same providers and was willing and able to introduce me to her former colleagues. Through her connections and reputation I was able to meet a range of providers and key informants in Christchurch during the initial consultation stage who later went on to participate in the research.

Our final reason for working together was a common desire to recruit participants from Auckland; an area neither of us knew. Nor did we know many of the key players very well. In combining our Auckland consultation we were able to provide each other with “whānau” support as we entered the area “cold”. Practical benefits such as having one person navigate and another negotiate Auckland’s roads was a positive and serendipitous spin-off.