Negotiating Ethical Spaces for Indigenous Knowledge Production

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Negotiating Ethical Spaces for Indigenous
Knowledge Production

• Global Forum on Bioethics and Research
• 3-5 December 2008

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Outline of Presentation

• Te Hau Mihi Ata
• Indigenous knowledge production
• Negotiating ethical spaces
• Guidelines on Pacific Health Research

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Te Hau Mihi AtaMatauranga Maori Science

• Explores the connections between matauranga Maori
  and science through progressive dialogue
• Aims are to understand the interface between
  knowledge systems AND
• Develop tools to facilitate dialogue, and promote
  transformational thinking and innovation

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(No Transcript)
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Indigenous Knowledge Production

• Draws on the indigenous reference
• Lived knowledge maintained through use
• Greater awareness of transmission rather than
  production
• Evolves in response to changing environments
• Timeless appearance despite generational
  interpretation

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Negotiated Space
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Beyond Dialogue

• The truth revealed in dialogue is an impetus to
  action a true idea is a principle of action.
  This is why genuine dialogue leads to a change of
  attitude (Mitias Al Jasmi 2004)
• Knowledge exchange is an emotional as well as
  cognitive process
• It must foster interpathic as well as
  intellectual understanding

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Principles for engagement

• Mana enhancing
• Meaningful relationship so that theres no
  negative reaction. Pro-action
• manaakitanga, whakawhanaungatanga, makohakoha,
  houkura, ensuring safety
• Respect (tootooaa) for knowledge, practice and
  individual -
• He pukepuke moana e eketia, he tihi maunga e
  pikitia, he tihi tangata e kore e pikitia , he
  tapu.
• He pa tikapu e eketia, he paharakeke e kore, he
  tapu

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Guidelines on Pacific Health Research (2004)

• Aimed to use Pacific world-views as primary
  reference points
• The term Pacific refers in this context to the
  shared cultural heritage of a diverse range of
  Pacific peoples resident in New Zealand, which is
  predominantly Polynesian (94).
• The largest Pacific ethnic groups in New Zealand
  are (in order of size) Samoan, Cook Islands
  Maori, Tongan, Niue, Fijian, Tokelauan and
  Tuvaluan. However, the term Pacific also tends
  to be inclusive of Vanuatu, New Caledonia,
  Tahiti, Hawaii, Palau, Solomon Islands,
  Bougainville, Palau, Papua New Guinea and other
  Pacific populations who are from the wider
  Pacific region, also known as Oceania.

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• Imagine, if you will, a worldview that
  understands the environment, humans, the animate
  and the inanimate all natural life - as sourced
  from the same divine origin, imbued with life
  force, interrelated and genealogically connected.
  
• In this worldview, the interrelationship between
  all things between people, the land,
  sea, sky, rocks, plants, surrounds is
  sacred and cosmologically determined.
• Equation and alignment with other people and
  parts of life is integral to an ordered system of
  interconnection
• (Tamasese Efi 2007).

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Reconstruction / Negotiation

• Pacific research will be underpinned by Pacific
  cultural values and beliefs and will be conducted
  in accordance with Pacific ethical standards
  values and aspirations

Obviously we cannot recreate our traditional
Pacific communities in New Zealand but we can
reclaim a sense of community through the
identification of core values that are
consistent with the rebuilding and reconstruction
of relationships that promote health and
well-being and for all our people (Dr Ana Maui
Taufeulungaki 2004)
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Restoration
Such work begins from ethnic-specific starting
points of cosmology language rituals protocols
narratives chants songs symbols
genealogies which provide rich sources of
analytical, theoretical and conceptual knowledge
and tools, as well as an abundant mine of Pacific
core values and ethics

• An exploration into Oceanias library, the
  knowledge its people possess.
• SUBRAMANI 2001, p.
  150

• The process of appropriation by cultures of
  their own rich genius.
• OKERE, NJOKU AND DEVISCH 2005, p 1

What good is political independence if we remain
colonized epistemologically?
GEGEO, 2001, p278
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The nature of an ethical relationship
Va is the space between, the between-ness, not
empty space, not space that separates but space
that relates, that holds separate entities and
things together in the unity-in-all, the space
that is context, giving meaning to things. A
well known Samoan expression is la teu le va,
cherish/nurse/care for the va, the relationships.
This is crucial in communal cultures that value
group, unity, more than the individual person /
creature / thing in terms of group, in terms of
va, relationships. Wendt, 2002

• Relationship as the spatial site of all ethical
  conduct
• Va, the space between, not empty space but the
  space that relates

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Overarching Principle

• RELATIONSHIPS
• To develop, cultivate maintain ethical
  relationships is integral to all ethical practice

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10 principles
relationships
With the aim of articulating the features of
ethical research relationships
with Pacific peoples living in Aotearoa
New Zealand

• Rights
• Participation
• Protection
• Utility
• Capacity Building

• Respect
• Reciprocity
• Balance
• Meaningful engagement
• Cultural competency

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Negotiation
Neutral negotiated space for interaction connect
ion exchange innovation adaptation
Vitalisation and restoration of indigenous
knowledge systems
Other knowledge paradigms as source of
alternative ideas, values
Expansion, innovation, change and exchange
maintain the relevance, and therefore survival,
of a cultural knowledge, ethics and value system.
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Participation
If research targets the Pacific population,
Pacific peoples should participate at all
levels of the research
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Protection
Recognising that Pacific research relationships
are often based on structural societal
inequalities, care must always be taken to
protect those less powerful
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Rights
Research should not be detrimental to research
participants, as individuals, or as members of an
identified ethnic group
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Rights
All research relationships are implicated with
both rights and responsibilities to the other
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Deliberation / Negotiation

• What should have continuing energy from
  traditional paradigms?
• What are our contemporary concerns regarding
  social justice, participation in society?
• What are the epistemic sources of the values we
  are upholding as Pacific?
• Do we have the power to redefine, re-imagine and
  re-shape ourselves?

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Negotiated Space The relief of spatial
metaphors

• The use of space is a necessary accompaniment of
  encounters, providing not only physical territory
  but also the psychological space to rehearse
  identity and to confirm the relationship between
  self and others (Durie 200220).

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HRC GUIDELINES

• Despite sourcing and seeking to learn from
  in-depth and coherent understandings of the
  indigenous knowledge paradigms of the Pacific, it
  was not constrained by what could be found there
• A negotiation between two divergent and sometimes
  incongruent knowledge and ethics systems

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Conclusion

• Within a neutral but purposeful space, the expert
  panel was able to locate shared ideas and ethical
  values, as well as identify and confront
  contradictions.
• The negotiated space between Pacific and
  western ethical principles provided the
  conceptual room and terms of engagement that
  allowed for epistemic and cultural exchange,
  expansion and the development of new
  philosophies.