Asetoa Sam Pilisi Negotiating service within areas of responsibilities: Experiences of New Zealand born Pacific tertiary students 2020 School of Education A dissertation submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Educational Leadership at Auckland University of Technology Abstract Service within Pacific cultures is a practical way to utilise personal skills and resources to contribute to the needs of others. There is an expectation that Pacific youth play an active part in various areas of serving the wider and as Thomsen, Tavita and Levi-Teu (2018, p.12) state “the first obligation is to the family before anything else”, therefore fulfilling family responsibilities is a key priority for Pacific youth. This dissertation analyses the understandings and experiences of New Zealand born Pacific youth with service, cultural obligations and leadership in the home, school/university, and church. The aim of this dissertation was to investigate the complexities involved with New Zealand born Pacific youth navigating responsibilities of service and cultural obligation when operating from, between and in-between two opposing values-based systems.
For the New Zealand born Pacific youth interviewed for this research, this involved ongoing internal reflection, and constant navigating and negotiating through important relationships. This dissertation takes a strengths-based approach to investigating and exploring lived experiences of New Zealand born Pacific youth. The importance of family was echoed through the literature review and in the talanoa interviews. Serving in and through the family was cited as the primary setting in which New Zealand born Pacific youth observed and developed their service skills.
Skills and values such as love, gratefulness, respect, and leadership were all identified as outcomes to Pacific youth serving. Family obligations were deemed one of the key priorities for New Zealand born Pacific youth and attending to the needs of the family often meant evaluating and prioritising the needs of the family over other needs and responsibilities. While serving others brought forth challenges that New Zealand born Pacific youth had to constantly negotiate values and worldviews, serving the needs of others was cited as important. Not only did serving others and fulfilling cultural obligations bind relationships together, but it also provided New Zealand born Pacific youth with purpose and empowerment.
This internal fulfilment was one key element to New Zealand born Pacific youth serving others. Further research is needed to explore the rich experiences of New Zealand born Pacific youth serving others and how this clashes and compliments with various other responsibilities. Strength’s based research is desperately needed to investigate the lived experiences of New Zealand born Pacific youth who have deliberately positioned themselves in the’ negotiated space’ (Le Va, 2009) as agents of both Pacific and Western worldviews and practices. Serving others influences family and personal social, i emotional, cultural, and economic wellbeing, therefore exploring the wide-ranging impacts that serving and giving has on New Zealand born Pacific youth is needed.
Deeper understanding will be beneficial to social, health and educational agencies who support New Zealand born Pacific youth with maximising the best of both Pacific and Western worlds. ii Table of Contents Abstract. i Table of Contents. iii List of Figures.
v List of Tables. v Attestation of Authorship. vii CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION. 5 Overview of Research Design.
6 Organisation of Chapters. 7 CHAPTER TWO: LITERATURE REVIEW. 9 Pacific Social Capital. 20 CHAPTER THREE: METHODOLOGY.
23 Va and Teu le Va. 29 CHAPTER FOUR: FINDINGS. 31 Serving others as gratefulness and love. 31 Observing others and developing to serve.
35 Serving within hierarchical structures. 49 CHAPTER FIVE: DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION. 50 Analysing service through Epeli Hau’ofa. 68 Appendix A: Ethics Approval.
69 Appendix B: Research Tools. 70 Participant Information Sheet – Page 1. 70 Participant Information Sheet – Page 2. 71 Participant Information Sheet – Page 3.
73 Talanoa Interview Prompts. 74 Appendix C: Support Letter. 75 iii List of Figures Figure 1: Service Negotiated Space Model (Using Hau’ofa, 2008). 54 List of Tables Table 1 Pakeha values vs Pacific Peoples/Maori values.
11 Table 2 Service through Epeli Hau’ofa (2008). 51 Table 3: New Zealand Born Pacific youth participants service tensions. 54 v Attestation of Authorship I hereby declare that this submission is my own work and that, to the best of my knowledge and belief, it contains no material previously published or written by another person (except where explicitly defined in the acknowledgements), nor material which to a substantial extent has been submitted for the award of any other degree or diploma of a university or other institution of higher learning. Asetoa Sam Pilisi 29/11/19 vi Acknowledgements In completing this dissertation, I would like to firstly give thanks to God.
It is through Him that ALL things are possible. I am not the smartest, nor am I super organised, therefore by God’s grace and love I/we made it to the end. Secondly, I would like to acknowledge my Gramps, the late Rev. Asetoa Edwin Pilisi.
His wisdom, his commitment to service and his genuine love for people provided me with a great role model to grow up with. KFC Hot n Spicy lunch next time we catchup To our family rugrats: Dahlia, Korinito, Jett, Jarel, Manu and Eli, hope this is a reminder to you all to work hard to achieve greater things than I/we’ve done to date. To the rest of my family and friends, you are all loved and appreciated, and I do not want to name names in case I miss anyone. I am thankful for the prayers and support and I would not have made it without you all.
To the Pacific young people that were interviewed. Fa’afetai tele lava, Malo ‘aupito, Meitaki ma’ata and Fakaaue lahi mahaki. I am truly humbled to tell your stories. You all shared life experiences that were wrapped with love, laughter and food – the recipe for happiness for Islanders! They’ve enriched me and my prayer is that you all be blessed as you continue to bless others.
Thank you for honouring this dissertation with your voices, this dissertation stands on the mana of you and your families. To the many young Pacific people in Western Sydney, Auckland and Niue that I’ve been blessed to eat, laugh, mock and sometimes cry with over the last 10 years I salute you all for your dedicated service to your families and communities. Your commitment to each other is what makes us different to everyone else. It is many of these encounters that shaped the motivation for this study, so I thank you for the time, respect, love (and shade) shared.
To Dr Howard Youngs, I am truly grateful and blessed for the opportunity to undertake research under your supervision and guidance. Your servant heart, wisdom and warmth has been greatly appreciated. Your genuine care has made this journey less painful than it could’ve been without your support. I’ve had a rockstar supervisor! My prayer is that you continue to bless others in the same way that you have blessed me and the research that I’ve undertaken.
This dissertation was undertaken in accordance with the Auckland University of Technology Ethics Committee and the final ethics approval was granted on 13th September 2019. The ethics approval number is 19/333 and the notification letter is in Appendix A. Last but definitely not least, I need to acknowledge my boss Jayne Mayerhofler. You sold me this idea of enrolling into the Master of Educational Leadership programme, as I had my eyes on returning to Sydney.
I did not know what this qualification was about, nor did it sound catchy right off the bat. Nevertheless, you convinced me that this was worth doing and you promised that you would do your best to accommodate the time needed to study. Well boss, a few years down the track but I got it done. As the mum/aunty you are, you were right after all – all I had to do was listen with my ears.
Truly, I am thankful. To Sato’alepai, Vailoa i Palauli, Avatele, Alofi Tokelau – I’ll be home soon Kitukituea - #57 vii CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION Pacific Islanders should write their own histories, their own versions of their history. Histories written by outsiders, no matter how fair they've been, are still views of foreigners, still views of other people about us. In many ways, those histories have imposed on us views of ourselves that have added to our colonization.
We should write our own histories in order to be free of those histories written about us, those images created by other people about us, not only in history books, but in fictions they've written about us. Albert Wendt (as cited in Hereniko & Wilson, 1999, p.90) Background This dissertation looked at the lived experiences of New Zealand born Pacific youth with service and responsibilities with cultural obligations. This exploration also included investigating understandings and views of leadership. Service within this dissertation encompassed many domestic daily tasks, but also included activities that extend beyond the home and into the community, which can often involve working for and with large social networks.
New Zealand born Pacific youth were tasked with fulfilling these responsibilities to their best of their abilities, which involved ongoing negotiation of available resources and important relationships. This dissertation unpacks the complexities associated with serving and fulfilling cultural obligations for New Zealand born Pacific youth with a literature review of relevant research and interview five participants to gain insights to their lived experiences and perceptions. 2013 census data (Statistics New Zealand, 2013) revealed that Pacific communities have a larger share of children than all other ethnic groups and nearly two thirds of Pacific communities are New Zealand born. This has been a growing trend in recent censuses, which happen every five years in New Zealand.
This indicates that Pacific communities are a very youthful population and Aotearoa New Zealand is ‘home’ by birth for many New Zealand Pacific peoples. Therefore, New Zealand Pacific born youth are a key component of Pacific communities and it is their experiences that are crucial to informing and influencing the narratives of growing up as a Pacific person in New Zealand. Choosing to focus on New Zealand born Pacific youth in this dissertation was a deliberate attempt to contribute to the body of literature that has described facets of the New Zealand experience for Pacific people. Early research included Pitt and Macpherson (1974) looking at the journeys of early Pacific migrants to New Zealand and subsequent studies include Anae (1997), Tiatia (1998), Macpherson, Spoonley and 1 Anae (2001) which have looked at the various experiences of Pacific people born or raised in New Zealand.
This study drew on analyses made in earlier research to give context to the evolving lived experiences of Pacific New Zealanders and put a special focus on New Zealand born Pacific youth and their experiences with service, cultural obligations and leadership. Personal story Locating my position within this study starts with the journey from the Pacific during the post-war economic boom of New Zealand. In the early 1960s my maternal grandparents came from Niue to Auckland and were unknowingly joined by my paternal grandparents who came from Samoa. They all came separately as young single workers in search of opportunities for themselves, their families back in their villages and their descendants who would be born and raised in this new homeland.
Both my parents were born in New Zealand. Some of their experiences as part of the first waves of New Zealand born Pacific people were captured by Pitt and Macpherson (1974) and later in Anae (1997) and Tiatia (1998). My father’s childhood revolved around family and church. His parents remained committed to Fa’a Samoa (Samoan way of life), therefore despite relocating to New Zealand, made deliberate choices to replicate traditional Samoan practices in their new homeland.