Collaborative Research Stories: Whakawhanaungatanga. Russell Bishop.
Palmerston North, New Zealand: Dunmore Press, 1996. 273 pp.
LINDA SUE WARNER
University of Missouri at Columbia
Russell Bishop presents a series of stories he has collected while working within the contemporary Maori contexts in Aotearoa/New Zealand. The stories arise from a number of research projects, including Bishop's own, that redefined method and theory. They begin with genealogical research, which he describes as "participant-driven research," on the author's own family.
The second study, entitled "The Stories of Tu Mai Kia Tu Ake and Mahi Tu Tonu," describes two interrelated research projects that focused on schools. Using interviews, the primary Maori researchers wanted to evaluate the impact of education initiatives on clusters of schools serving Maori children. These narratives recognize the Kaupapa Maori concerns of initiation, benefits, representation, legitimization, and accountability. This study is a striking example of constructed worldviews by contrasting people: a general Western European worldview and a southern Maori worldview.
The third study, "The Story of Tatari, Tautoko, Tauawhi," is on the work of Ted Glenn, an educational psychologist interested in determining the cause of the high numbers of Maori students in upper-primary and intermediate school who are unable to read. Bishop indicates that Glenn identified certain issues of power and control over methods of research that proved to be more important than the methods themselves. Significantly, this confounded his interactions with "experts."
The fourth study is an interview with a Maori woman that focuses on her own research perspective as discursive practice. This chapter is entitled "Two Stories of Institutional Change" and is centered around the world of Alva Kapa. Central to this dialogue is the "empowerment" of the students who participated in her research, especially as they addressed problem solving from a Maori perspective.
The last research story is of the development of the Otango Maori Education Plan. The development of this plan, by nonindigenous educators, represented the extension of an existing concern within the Maori community and further demonstrated a cultural means of addressing the need for systemic change. The use of spiral discourse proved meaningful in the process of systemic change locally and at the policy-making level of the Ministry of Education.
Finally, Bishop proposes a research matrix that includes himself as a participant, including interviews termed "interviews as chat" and analysis of joint narratives with other researchers. Bishop identifies methods of analyses in order to study the processes used in each of the projects. This analysis promotes self-determination through power sharing.
The book has two significant strengths. First, it provides, in clear narrative form, the foundation for the research and its ultimate conclusions. The author's scholarly, detailed presentation of the narratives is unique and at times fascinating. Second, the author provides a glossary of Maori vocabulary. Such a reference is requisite, and this one is thorough.
The primary weakness of the book is not found in the text itself. The people who will find the book useful and who choose to incorporate it into their teaching or their own research are most likely individuals who are open to other worldviews. In real life, however, it is likely that other researchers will not attempt to read the book; or if they do, they will discount it as mere storytelling. Bishop will end up "preaching to the choir."
As an American Indian educator and researcher, I have often found myself irritated by non-Indian researchers and their stereotypic conclusions. I do not, however, believe that one has to be American Indian to do research with American Indians. Bishop, and the other researchers in the texts, are examples of researchers with various perspectives who remain open to other cultures. As such, the book is a contribution to the field because it is an example of critical, scholarly research that considers the perspective of indigenous groups and values that perspective.
This work would be useful as a tool in a research class, particularly as a resource for students who anticipate doing research on indigenous groups. Typically, research classes focus on quantitative or qualitative research methods and exclude one area. For a general research class, or in teaching research methods, this book would be a valuable resource. Finally, the book is a valuable beginning point for debate among scholars of qualitative research methods. Its singular focus on storytelling and the challenge of positioning provides a significant entry into indigenous research methods and its continuing discourse.
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