Taking Our Lickings and Pitching In

Overview

The Interview

Gladys Rowe: Join me and my guests as we open up our evaluation bundles to share the gifts, knowledges, and hopes that we’ve gathered in our journeys. I hope in these stories you will recognize the critical contributions Indigenous evaluation can make as we work towards de-colonial futures and strengthening Indigenous resurgence. I invite you to grab a cozy beverage and settle in.

Tansi! Okay, today I’m here with two amazing scholars and human beings, Dr. Paula Morelli and Dr. Peter Mataira. I’ve known you both for many years through the International Indigenous Voices in Social Work Conference, and through my time supporting the Journal of Indigenous Social Development, which were amazing experiences. Also, when I was a graduate student you were supportive with your insights and encouragement, so I was really grateful when you accepted the invitation to come and sit in conversation with me today. Your contributions to the field of Indigenous research and evaluation have grown my own understanding of how to do this work. Welcome.

Peter Mataira: Miigwetch. Aloha. Kia ora. Ngā mihi. Greetings everyone. Ko Hikurangi te maunga, Waiapu te awa, Ngāti porou te iwi, Horouta te waka. My name is Peter Mataira. Hikurangi is the name of my mountain, my river is Waiapu. I am a descendent of the ancestor Porourangi, and my ancestors voyaged to lands known as Aotearoa on the sailing vessel Horouta. The connections to my mountain, river, and genealogy are matriarchal, on my mother’s side. I grew up on the east coast of the North Island of Aotearoa New Zealand. The idea of positionality is really important to my people. Introducing myself and being connected this way is natural and necessary especially when I am on someone else’s sacred land. I am from Aotearoa New Zealand, but have lived and worked in Hawaiʻi for the past 20 years. I teach social work at Hawaiʻi Pacific University, and I’ve known and worked with my colleague Dr. Morelli for more than 20 years. I first met her at the Third Healing Our Spirit Worldwide Conference in Aotearoa in 1998. It’s an honor to be here. Thank you again, Gladys, for the opportunity to share our thoughts about Indigenous evaluation. Kia ora anō.

Paula Morelli: Aloha, I’m Paula Toki Tanemura Araullo Morelli, and all these names partially share my genealogy. I’m a third-generation descendant of Filipino Japanese immigrant settlers here in Hawaiʻi. My second-generation parents were both raised in Hawaiʻi, but did not meet until they were forcibly removed from the west coast during WWII and held in American concentration camps. There were over 120,000 Japanese Americans incarcerated in 10 camps across the United States until the war ended. I was born in Chicago and raised in Molokaʻi and Oʻahu. Today, I live on east side of the island of Oʻahu in the moku (land division) of Kona. Peter and I met about 23 years ago. About a year later, he came to Hawaiʻi and contacted me. We had lunch and I asked, Hey! Do you want to join the University of Hawaiʻi School of Social Work faculty? It took a year and a half, and he became a faculty member. Since then, we’ve had many adventures and experiences together as we’ve researched and worked in Indigenous communities.

Gladys: Thank you so much for sharing your introductions and a little bit about how you came to work together. I think I see you as this powerhouse team working with communities and Indigenous evaluation! But that started somewhere, so I’m wondering if you could tell me about how you started to work together with the focus of Indigenous evaluation. What did that look like at the beginning?

Paula: Working at the university, we had our usual load of teaching classes and doing research. Both of us wanted to provide research relevant to local communities. While the University of Hawaiʻi is classified as having “very high research activity,” with the expectation that faculty seek large federal grants, we were more interested in relation-building research that benefited our Indigenous communities. We started meeting with folks and observing what was happening in local communities and responding to calls for researchers. In the process, we were invited to develop and provide program evaluation research for Na Kamalei, a culturally-based Indigenous education non-profit program in Punaluʻu, a rural community in northeast Oʻahu. They were recipients of an Administration for Native Americans (ANA) award that required program evaluation with outcome reports. Na Kamalei was our first community-based evaluation research project, and it initiated a special long-term relationship. Even after eighteen years we would like them to call on us if there’s anything they need.

Peter: My family and I arrived in Hawaiʻi in early 2002. I came from a life and an experience grounded very much in my culture and my community. As I said in my introduction, I’m from the east coast of the north island of Aotearoa, a place steeped in tradition. Much of my work and career as a practitioner, researcher, and educator in social and community arenas has involved doing some kind of evaluation and assessment work. This is something, I believe, Indigenous people have been conditioned to do, and have become good at, given our histories of colonization and distrust for government institutions. You just do it.  I was fortunate to work on a number of projects at my previous job at Massey University where I was lecturing and working towards my PhD. We had to be imbued in cultural knowledge and understanding, and sensitive to tikanga (Protocols) of engagement when working with local communities. I had come from a life of always acknowledging relationships and so taking that into Massey wasn’t difficult. The ever-present challenge, of course, was the racism within the institution. Universities are notoriously extractive and oppressive places for Native people and our communities. Coming to communities in Hawaiʻi, I knew rather instinctively to be respectful always, and to honor the Hawaiian Protocols of engagement. As Paula said, one of the first projects we worked on as colleagues was on the North Shore of Oʻahu where I live. To this day, we still have a close and personal relationship with many of the local people. We still see each other from time to time. One of the things we have learnt is that our work stays forever, and we will always be accountable. People still come up to us and ask about those projects.

“One of the things we have learnt is that our work stays forever, and we will always be accountable. People still come up to us and ask about those projects.”
_{– Peter}

Kūpuna (Elders) remind us to go into every situation “with an open mind, and always with an open heart, open ears, and humility.” That’s how we begin always our process of working in communities: entering as welcomed, non-intrusive, and mindful guests. We are honoring guesthood, as our English colleague Dr. Graham Harvey wrote about in his article “Guesthood as Ethical Decolonizing Research Method.ˮ^[1] He wrote this after visiting my community, Ruatōria, as a researcher in the late 1990s. He had what he described to me as a profound awakening as a non-Indigenous scholar coming into a Māori community. His guesthood was being discussed and negotiated. He said he felt a sense of conversion to becoming “local.” I’ve always been fascinated by that idea and I’ve been driven to honor that conversion and to enter every situation as a guest, even if – in fact, more so – if it is my own community. Even if I’m entering a forest or the ocean. Paula and I have been following this approach since we began working together all those years ago.

Paula: One of the lessons we learned is each community has many stories they want to tell us, so we need to listen first.

Peter: We understand listening is perhaps the most critical skill in any Indigenous setting and in Indigenous evaluation work. In 2010 we did a short 25-minute video documentary on our engagement with two nonprofits serving local Native Hawaiian and Pacific Island communities, Na Kamalei and Hoʻoulu ʻĀina, and it clearly expresses the importance of listening. For us, the key to being effective was listening; not just reflective listening or active listening, but also listening to what’s not being said. You must learn to listen with your eyes and see with your ears in Indigenous communities because you can sense from what people’s expressions are whether they feel comfortable or uncomfortable, or they’re not quite sure what you mean. You have to feel, become attuned to vibrations, to what and how people express themselves and if they feel comfortable or not, or if they’re not quite sure why they are there. We learned to listen with reverence and intentionality.

Paula: We also learned that inevitably you’re going to do something that they don’t agree with. We had to take our lickings and stay in the struggle with them. It’s an important part of long-term relationship-building. We were scolded in Na Kamalei! We learned to humbly admit shortcomings. I think that was critical to the strong relationship that developed over time.

Peter: I agree with Paula. I recall leaning over to her at a gathering and saying, “I think they’re pissed with us.” I think that’s a good thing. I felt humbled and privileged: for them to be able to express that, to push back at us, which would normally send a researcher into defensive posturing, reeling into fragile unawareness, was such a powerful and courageous thing to do. An act of asserting their mana (power). I felt that they trusted us well enough to call us out and say what they needed to say. The community has to know they can trust you and that they can scold you without ever feeling apologetic. These sorts of encounters I learned about growing up back in Aotearoa. Māori have always pushed back at anyone who dares enter our communities and disrespect us. People we don’t know coming into our communities, especially researchers, have to follow Protocol. And we have a way of doing it through our Protocol of welcome, which we call pōwhiri. Paula has experienced that when she’s visited Aotearoa.

Gladys: Thank you for sharing those stories and those experiences. I always learn so much just sitting and listening to both of you. I really appreciate the lessons that you shared there around Protocol and around the idea of guesthood. One of the things that I think about often is, even though I’m a Cree scholar and an Indigenous researcher and evaluator, that doesn’t necessarily mean that I’m granted free access to any community I walk into. It’s about taking the lessons that I’ve learned from my ways of knowing, being, and doing, and then entering into a relationship, following Protocol in a good way, and knowing that sometimes I’m going to mess up. And that’s really nerve-wracking to think about. Then how do you be in that relationship when you mess up, when you are given that licking, when you need to sit with humility and listen even more than you share? I’m wondering if there’s some other examples you’d like to share about how you enter into a community to do that work grounded in the principles of Indigenous evaluation.

Paula: Each community is very different. In Hawaiʻi, for example, each of our neighbour islands Kauaʻi, Oʻahu, Molokaʻi, Lānaʻi, Maui and the island of Hawaiʻi has unique communities. One can never assume that Indigenous Native Hawaiian communities are the same on each island. For example, Molokaʻi, an island with a population of approximately 7,500 people, remains in its natural state of beauty without over-development, and it’s cautious about outside intervention. Even though I grew up in Molokaʻi, I’m still a guest and there are high expectations. I am ever aware, respectful, and listening.  One needs to be prepared, learn the history of place and people living there, learn about current happenings, context, and needs. First and foremost, listen.

“Even though I grew up in Molokaʻi, I’m still a guest and there are high expectations. I am ever aware, respectful, and listening.  One needs to be prepared, learn the history of place and people living there, learn about current happenings, context, and needs. First and foremost, listen.”
 _{–  Paula}      

Peter: Yes, and that is really important. To any of you listening to this podcast who have visited my home country, Aotearoa, you would know especially if you’ve ever engaged with Māori and have been to a welcome ceremony (pōwhiri) onto the marae. The marae is where you see our culture being expressed. Pōwhiri has a very clear intention of protection of the people. It is a practice of asserting mana and control. Any visiting guest coming into our communities, whether as a group of researchers or a visiting school or sports team, you enter by way of pōwhiri. It is an engagement where you must, as a guest, state your intentions and who you represent.  It is all done in a very formal and respectful way. Welcome Protocols are for us a necessary cultural and community protective factor; we don’t know who you are, we don’t know what your reasons are for coming, and we want you to understand boundaries. Protocols remind us who is in control of the process. So, what you do on our lands requires respect, but it is a protection for you also; we want to make sure you stay safe and enjoy your time with us. It’s an elaborate and inclusive process that most visitors say they will never forget.

So coming to Hawaiʻi, it’s interesting that I have that feeling every time I walk into a community; I need to wait at the door, or outside the entrance. Even though there is often no formal welcome Protocol, waiting for me is respectful. I usually say a karakia (prayer) before walking in. It is in tune with the rule that I must remember I am a guest here in the islands even though I’ve lived here for over two decades. As Paula mentioned, when I go home to see my family or to do work, it’s more of an interrogation process, something many Indigenous researchers experience when they too go home. Interrogation might be a harsh word, but it is never done by my people without aroha (love and respect). When I took Dr. Harvey back to my community we had a pōwhiri and I realized, as I stood next to him, that I was as much a guest as he was. That I was returning home from the “big city” and there were more expectations on me than this stranger from England. I shared this with Graham Harvey and he was intrigued by the idea of me being re-converted, or, as I joked to him once, “the prodigal son being purged.” And that became such a profound learning for me. When you return home, your community wants to know: Are you still grounded in the wellbeing and future of your community? Have you changed for better or worse? Have you got your priorities right? And for us as hau kāinga (people who belong to that place, those marae, and grew up there) pōwhiri is the opportunity to stand, to reconnect, to acknowledge and recognize our whakapapa (genealogy), our belonging to community, people, place, and marae. It is accountability and I think it’s a wonderful and powerful example of how our cultural practices are excellent research designs and methods. It is all about relationships, positionality, ethics, data, not institutional review boards. And so that’s one great teaching that I learned.

Paula and I just recently worked on the west side of Oʻahu, and it was a humbling experience as well as a wonderful opportunity to meet local people from that side of the island. What we call back home rohe (natural land division), the space between the rivers and the mountains ridges and ocean, Hawaiians call ahupuaʻa. We continue to stay in touch with them about other things, not just about evaluation work. We’re always mindful that we are walking into someone else’s place and life.

Gladys: So those examples that you just shared are some ideas or some learnings that you’ve taken about how to begin in the work, how to begin the relationship, what are the important things to be aware of. I know you’ve developed and written about the Strengths Enhancing Evaluation Research model but I was wondering if you could walk me through it. As you start an evaluation partnership, what does that look like in the development? Can you talk through some of the steps in that process?

Paula: Yes, our second evaluation consult was with Hoʻoulu ʻĀina, a land-based educational program. As a result, we developed the Strengths Enhancing Evaluation Research (SEER) video and manual, offering some guidelines to working in communities.^[2] But I worry about prescribing things or telling people there are steps! Instead, it’s a model that works from a baseline of respect and flexibility. Peter, any thoughts?

Peter: Yes, guidelines or having a conceptual framework, a game plan, or at least a theoretical framework is always helpful, but so is accepting that as soon as we go into the community – the moment we physically set foot onto their space – everything changes. You have to let everything go. In Māori, we say “Nā! whakaora” or “Now! let it live, or be.”  Guidelines and game plans are subject to change. We are at their discretion; we are there by invitation and as such yield to their ways and their processes. That is, we go in prepared and then go with their flow. Paula and I would always prepare prior to meeting with an organization. We’d lay out our timeframe, our aims, and objectives, our to-do list, but things would happen, so we’d have to adjust to whatever was happening at that moment. We’re not doing improv or living on faith alone, but the spirit is our guide. We were in their space, and so whatever happened, happened. Trust is built around being flexible and not being phased when things don’t work out as you planned. You have to trust community members have trust in their own ways. Ultimately, our purpose is to be invited back to talk more. We also never go anywhere without kai. Food is a symbol of sharing, of peace. It is relational and an important way to reach towards someone’s soul. It honors one’s presence and one’s life.

“Yes, guidelines or having a conceptual framework, a game plan, or at least a theoretical framework is always helpful, but so is accepting that as soon as we go into the community – the moment we physically set foot onto their space – everything changes. You have to let everything go. In Māori, we say ‘Nā! whakaora’ or ‘Now! let it live, or be.'”
_{– Peter}

For example, we were at Hoʻoulu ʻĀina in Kalihi Valley to work with the executive director Puni, when a group of high schoolers came to do a service project. They were there to clean up the front entrance to the property. There were about 20 or so youth pulling weeds and clearing drains. Puni’s husband was on a huge bulldozer uprooting old trees and scraping the roadway. Their three-year-old son was running around unattended, and while Paula and I were setting up to interview Puni, I sensed her anxiety about her baby, and so I let Paula and Puni know I was going to go down to the front and be his kai tiaki (guide) and take care of him. She and Paula went ahead with the interview without me. When I got to the front driveway, it was chaos. I gestured to Puni’s husband, I’d watch his son while he worked and not to worry that baby was around heavy equipment and lots of people were busy. Both parents’ minds were at ease and able to concentrate on what they were doing. This was not just an exercise in safety but in how we need to accommodate and work around what is happening at the moment. The key is knowing how to adapt to unexpected or unintended situations.

Paula: I think reciprocity is part of what we’re talking about. Reciprocity meaning if we are present, we don’t stand around. We pitch in and help, do what’s right, what’s pono.

“I think reciprocity is part of what we’re talking about. Reciprocity meaning if we are present, we don’t stand around. We pitch in and help, do what’s right, what’s pono.”
_{– Paula}

To your question, SEER has a graphic (page 2, Figure 1) in this non-prescriptive manual that essentially describes the researcher coming into the situation as a respectful learner, a partner, a consultant, and then developing that relationship through trust building and understanding guesthood (as Peter mentioned), partnering in as many aspects of the research process as possible. It does take a commitment of time, it’s not in-and-out. Engagement will take several months, at least three to four months, a couple of years. And we need to respect the participants’ time. They’ve got their ongoing work. We can’t just come in and expect them to make time. We must go when it’s convenient for them, at their time, their pace. Taking time to listen to their stories is vital; it’s a respectful way to co-discover relevant, valuable stories, data. We invite them to be part of the data analysis process. The results should be collaboratively developed, used for the community’s or organization’s growth, empowerment, and sustainability.

Peter: And to add to that, Paula said something so important about how we collect data. Data is treated as sacred. It is knowledge and in my culture all knowledge in context has meaning and purpose. We do what we’re trained to do as researchers but also as social workers. We co-create a space that is safe and conducive to making people want to sit and talk. At Na Kamalei we were out in their Discovery Garden, with pre-school keiki and their parents. We were going around observing the children and their parents collecting leaves, watching insects, having intimate conversations. These are data stories. Some children took great interest in what we were doing and asked us questions. At that moment you realize that you are also part of their data collection. That you are positioned in their story.

I recall another time we were at Hoʻoulu ʻĀina in Kalihi Valley. Two of the staff workers were fixing a backhoe that had broken down. I went over to talk to them to see if I could help. They both looked puzzled as I approached. They couldn’t figure out what was wrong and why it wouldn’t start. I told them my dad was a motor mechanic and he’d get us out fixing old lawnmowers and washing machines. So I helped find what the problem was. We checked and double-checked everything – the gas line, air filter, hydraulics. Come to find out it was the sparkplug. And I guess that’s collecting data and assessing outcome. I’ve learned over the years that Indigenous ways of collecting data aren’t just surveys or sitting in circles as you’d normally think of data collection. Sometimes the best and most appropriate place is in the garden, or while playing with kids, or when fixing machines. We do a lot of talk story while doing something with our hands, fixing stuff, weaving, preparing food, washing dishes, which is a very local, Polynesian, and natural way of gathering data.

You get to hear the most fascinating stories that you otherwise might never get to hear, when you’re talking to a mother or a father who’s tending to their two-year-old. They may be just trying to put baby to sleep or feed them snacks, they have no problem answering questions. And while some might say you’re invading or interrupting their personal space, if done respectfully and with humility, gathering data that way I think is far more real. It’s not like having to set up a manufactured process of sitting in a room behind tables talking to each other or having a face-to-face conversation in a quiet room. Typically, members of Indigenous communities are doing so many things all at the same time. I learned from my community that the most compelling conversations happen while washing dishes, cleaning the marae, cooking food, chopping firewood. The idea of working with your hands is as important as working with your mind. You have to learn to data-collect while your hands are doing something else. People don’t like to sit in a room with nothing to do and passively simply answer questions. It’s not natural for local people, nor is it user-friendly, and it definitely ain’t the best way to engage in storytelling. But the idea of doing something else while talking and answering questions might seem foreign or distracting to non-Indigenous evaluators.

On the marae, after the pōwhiri and kai (sharing of food), visitors are considered honorary locals. When they’re washing dishes with us, when they’re sweeping the floor or helping prepare and cook food, they’re us. The greatest honor is to become one with the place, the marae, and the people, even if it’s for a short period of time. It is powerful and equalizing. It’s perhaps a paradigm change for standard evaluation protocols. Your status as a professor, a researcher or as a celebrity means little to us, your humanness is what matters. You are who you are when you’re washing dishes with us and knowing that your privilege as guest is you knowing you are now one of us. And I think that’s an important lesson we should learn as evaluation researchers. This is so antithetical to the idea of researcher objectivity. That doesn’t work for us. Recognizing guesthood as an ethical imperative for decolonizing research is at the heart, I think, of changing the modern paradigm of doing evaluation work. It’s something overlooked in mainstream research but that cannot be tolerated much longer, especially as Indigenous communities are more insistent on accountability while being resistant to outside influences. So, for us, you can do great interviews while sweeping floors, washing dishes, or helping fix a broken backhoe.

“Recognizing guesthood as an ethical imperative for decolonizing research is at the heart, I think, of changing the modern paradigm of doing evaluation work. It’s something overlooked in mainstream research but that cannot be tolerated much longer, especially as Indigenous communities are more insistent on accountability while being resistant to outside influences.”
_{– Peter}

Gladys: Thank you for answering so deeply that question. I chuckled quietly when I said steps and you all are like, No, no, that’s not how it happens. It actually happens by just putting the values into action, by being there and showing up in a good way. And it’s about the how of the work, it’s about the process, and it’s about relationality and reciprocity. And so I appreciate those stories that you shared.

How you do your work is so deeply rooted in Indigenous ways of knowing, being, and doing, grounded in your own worldviews and cultural practices. But have you experienced challenges in getting that work supported, through funding, through actually working in this way and delivering evaluation in the way that it needs to be done? Have there been conflicts that have happened as a result?

Peter: For sure. It comes with being Indigenous researchers. There are always challenges, institutional gatekeeping, feelings of invisibility, a sense of what I call imposterism, all of those things. You’re dealing with a deeply inherent colonial system of institutional control. We recognize universities are among the most extractive and exploitive knowledge industries up there with the likes of mining, agricultural and fisheries companies who take from our community already-scarce resources and don’t bother to give back. They are good at taking from communities and making profit without compensation or equal reinvestment. We have developed thick skins and sharper minds in response to all this happening.

We’ve dealt with a lot of administrative challenges, hidden institutional barriers. We budgeted travel time for a project because I frequently needed to meet Paula for planning, fieldwork, and analysis at the university an hour away from me, but according to the university’s policy, because I lived within five miles of the project location, there was no travel reimbursement. Even though we had brought in the grant the university withheld funds. That’s just one example of an institutional policy that is an obstacle, and you figure out how you can work around it. Another example is resisting indirect costs for the university, so you can decrease their pull on the grant and increase funds available to communities.

Sharing like this on a podcast is affirming. Knowing that we all have gone through similar struggles. Little things that get in our way and big things that just won’t go away. Having opportunities and space to share with others breathes life back into my soul. I guess what I mean, Gladys, it’s not that there are hefty barriers, big challenges, and compounding conflicts ahead that get in our way. Those things are troubling, but they’re normative for us, they’re what we expect and anticipate. What’s so critical is the collective energy we source from hope and reconnecting with our cultures, our communities, our families. That too is also normative practice. To have barriers in front of us is not big-time broadband news; it’s the price, a consequence we pay for being who we are. What saddens me most is what’s happening inside our communities making it even harder for them to be autonomous, empowered. I’m thinking of wealth inequality, educational opportunities, health disparities, unemployment, etc.

In terms of going home to do research and evaluation work, you’re not only dealing with issues of land, environmental, and other economic injustices, a community that is angry, families that are broken, but also the overwhelming politics of your institutions governing your every move. And that typically is what we are immersed in every day. Universities are oppressive and racist, and our communities are broken, but you can’t let all that beat you. It’s a challenge, but you learn to navigate and stay as safe and well as you can. The most important thing is to share what you are learning with others and support each other. This is how to deal with collective fatigue. It is ongoing and, as one of my friends said once, the arc of colonization can only be complete if we lose hope. And hope is embedded in the struggle.

Paula: One needs to be prepared to go after and finesse funding. Research everything possible about funders, public and private: What is their mission? Who have they funded in the past? Who is on their board? What is their reputation in the community? There are many avenues to creatively locating money and support for community evaluation research. For example, Consuelo Foundation is a Hawaiʻi-based non-profit foundation focusing on abuse prevention in Filipino communities in the Philippines and among Native Hawaiians in Hawaiʻi. We were contracted by them to understand how Indigenous programs aligned with their mission. As we mentioned earlier, we also worked with the Administration for Native Americans (ANA), another big funder. ANA awarded funds to Na Kamalei, an Indigenous early education program open to the public. Na Kamalei invited us to be their evaluators through the connection with Consuelo Foundation. Networking is a big part of locating support: talking to people, sharing information, putting yourself out there. Peter and I make presentations in the community and at conferences. That’s how we started working with Ulu Aʻe, a learning center in Kalaeloa. Mikiʻala Lidstone, executive director of Ulu Aʻe, told a colleague at Kamehameha Schools she had seen us give a talk and wanted to contact us. He reached out to us, and we responded immediately to Mikiʻala. So networking is huge.

Peter: And can I just add one other thing in terms of the challenges that we constantly have to deal with: Who owns the data? How are peoples’ stories interpreted and for what purpose? Because I think Paula and I have always been very clear that what derives from the community belongs to them. But then, if you’re working on a grant, what does one do with all these data? We have this dilemma. We know the importance of giving back and reciprocity and that we must treat knowledge as sacred, as I said earlier. But that’s not how funders or universities see things. We walk a thin edge. Paula and I have always taken our draft findings and reports back to the community for their iterations in real time. We sit and go through every part of the draft in front of them and allow them to make necessary corrections. It’s always critical for us to not be part of an extractive but more of an introductive process.

And that’s really vital: how and in what form we return data back is important, both ethically and culturally. I’m deeply grateful to local videographer Matt Yamashita, Paula’s cousin, who’s been instrumental in helping us reformat and rethink our data into digital images and audio. Matt’s an incredibly talented filmmaker from Molokaʻi. His process and his patience allowed us to reimagine data. When video links are inserted in findings and reports they capture deeper context, human interactions, and relationships. A paratext if you will.

One of the things we hear from communities is that an evaluation never really captures essence, the interactions, the relationships. The many ways we can define data and how they are collected and presented is an exciting step into the future. Acknowledging our cultural ways of knowing and doing is becoming more prominent in evaluation research. Using artwork, writing songs, weaving histories, and cultural performances are also excellent ways of collecting and interpreting data. Why? Because that’s how we traditionally captured data. Data is etched into the whakairo (wood carvings) that serve as the frames for our meeting houses. The mataora (full facial tattoo on men), and the kauae moko (chin tattoo on women) are stories of family and genealogy. We call it the original inception of Facebook.

The future fields of Indigenous research and evaluation work will be in exploring new formats of data collection and interpretation. I’ve been reading a lot about Indigenous numeric, navigational, and ecological systems that are revealing much to the Western scientific world. Many Pacific Island people were using the binary codes long before philosophers or mathematicians of 1400s and 1500s Europe ever discovered them. Can we capture data with these Indigenous methods? We’ll continue to explore, validate, and use our Indigenous knowledge systems.

Paula: Yes, that is valuable. Another suggestion in this area is make sure you have a line item in your research budget to do this kind of creative reporting or information transmission. I always make a line for something in terms of reporting that’s not just paper.

Gladys: Yeah, so important. Arts-based translation, knowledge mobilization, is something I’m really excited about. Thank you for sharing.

What else is needed to support or to strengthen this field of Indigenous evaluation? What would you like to share with emerging Indigenous evaluators as they start to build experience in this work?

Peter: Well, to your first point, what I’m keen about doing is creating a global community of Indigenous researchers and storyteller that include the voices of our youth, our LGBTQI, and those with disabilities. The idea is to train them to become the experts at doing research in their own communities. It’s to guide, enable, and re-empower communities to engage with their own realities, their own knowledge. To mentor and inspire young Indigenous people to use research as a political resource. The reality is they already have knowledge and tools. They’re far more expert than probably us. I’m talking about the millennials and the Z generation and their knowledge of technology. So how could they as future evaluators use their communication devices, like iPhones and iPads, and their social media platforms to move into data collection and the use of generative artificial intelligence and machine learning to assist real time analysis? I think that’s exciting. It’s also a way to decolonize and empower communities, provided these new technologies have ethical safeguards to protect our communities.

And for emerging Indigenous evaluators: Know yourself, right? Who you are. Know that before you work with any Indigenous community. Especially your own. Be grounded in your own sense of cultural heritage or cultural heritages and self. It’s a challenge if you don’t know who you are and you’re entering into someone else’s community and they know who they are because they are connected people; that puts you at an ontological disadvantage. The most important question that is asked when a visitor comes to my community is not, What do you do for a living? or, Where do you work? It’s, Where are you from? Who are your ancestors? If you cannot answer these questions you’ll probably be asked, Why don’t you know these things? Māori are inquisitive – perhaps borderline nosey – and are fascinated by these things. What are your connections to your place? I’m from a culture rich in stories and storytellers, and if you meet any Māori – I know I might be generalizing here – we are story hoarders. We collect stories. We will say, Tell us about your mountain, your river, your ancestors. Tell us about what it’s like growing up in your community. So, if you ever come to Aotearoa, or even to Hawaiʻi, bring your stories.

A great lesson I learnt when I first came to the US, was that when you’re being introduced people don’t seem to value your story over your title as a professor, your status as published scholar and researcher, the college you attended and how much grant money you received. And I’ll be honest, Gladys: status, prestige, and fame don’t mean much to people in my community. But if you say, I grew up locally on the island of Molokaʻi, or I live in Hauʻula, or My children went to Kahuku High School, these things are valued because they connect you, not separate you. If you can tell your story it helps build relationships. You have a shared consciousness that will likely get you through tough times.

A good story in Māori culture is always complemented with a song.  So, when you come, learn your songs from your culture and community. We will eventually invite you to introduce yourself and sing to us. If you do that you’ve already won people’s hearts. Come prepared! When you stand to introduce yourself and can tell us who you are and where you’re from and then show us your singing talents, your guesthood is even more honored and appreciated. Saying you have a PhD doesn’t tell us where you came from.

Paula: Yes, introducing oneself with the acronym PhD could mean “push here dummy.” <laughs> Finding the courage to share who you are via your story, song, or arts connects one emotionally. I remember my first time receiving songs in Aotearoa; it made deep connections.

When I think about exciting changes, it’s hopeful to hear cross-fertilizing stories from Indigenous communities worldwide. These stories raise our awareness not only about multitudinous forms of colonization and oppression, but also more importantly about how we survive and persist in defiance. Seeing that larger picture helps us join and move together toward social justice. I am inspired by the work being done by Indigenous communities all over the world. The younger generation is mobilizing and leading. Gladys, you are that younger generation, and it’s a hopeful future. There will be more challenges, but together, listening to each other’s stories, we can reach our potential and live well. Set the bar high, activate, and live hope.

Gladys: Beautiful. I cannot believe that we are coming to the end of our time together. I have felt so inspired and energized by the passion you bring and the lessons you offer. Such a gentle space this has been. I’m really grateful. Was there anything else that you wanted to make sure to share into this space? Just to offer you a moment to close off our time together with any last words.

Peter: I want to thank you, Gladys, for doing this and creating the space and opportunities for evaluators, young and old – or should that be developing and seasoned evaluators? – to learn and to be validated in what they are feeling and thinking. Maybe to learn other ways in which to overcome challenges that they’re facing. I really appreciate you providing this space for that. I think Paula has said it well: we encourage anyone listening or reading to create a network or community of people that you can work with. A few weeks ago at the Hawaiʻi Pacific Evaluation Conference, we saw the talent and energies of some brilliant young Hawaiian women starting their careers in evaluation and research work. All incredibly grounded wahine (women). Yet the one thing they shared was a sense of being imposters, not being good enough at quantitative evaluation. We said, Don’t ever think somehow you’re the imposter as you do this work, just remember who the real imposters are. That struck me. These women have tremendous collective depth of knowledge and wisdom, and it was powerful. Paula and I encouraged them to continue to stay connected and to support and help each other.

For those of you listening to this presentation, feel free to reach out. If you want to talk story and throw out some ideas to us about your work we are only an email, text, or a Zoom call away. Don’t be shy to contact us. We’re both parents with grown children and understand what it’s like to engage with young people. Look alongside, not up at us. See us as your colleagues and not as experts. We’re willing to sit, talk, listen, share stories. Mahalo.

Paula: I was thinking the same thing: we are your community! Please reach out to us, we’re available and would love to talk story, regardless of how distant you are. Another thought: Western education is structurally and culturally oppressive. We’ve experienced feeling not up to par, not Western enough. We’ve felt fearful and discouraged but have always found the strength within to rediscover who we are, stand up and feel pono.  So please reach out, we’re part of your community, your family. Aloha.

Peter: Aloha.

Gladys: Ekosi. What a beautiful invitation! I’m so grateful to have spent this time with you. Thank you so much and wishing you a lovely rest of your day.

Listeners, I’m so glad you spent time with us today, too. I look forward to sharing the space with you again soon. Ekosani.

Footnotes

About the authors

name: Peter Mataira, PhD (Ngatiporou, Te Aitanga-a-Mahaki, Kahungunu, Te Arawa)

institution: Hawai'i Pacific University

website: https://www.hpu.edu/faculty/cla/peter-mataira.html

Dr. Peter Mataira earned his doctoral degree in social policy and social work from Massey University, Albany campus in Auckland, New Zealand. He has published widely in areas of Indigenous health, well-being and economic justice with particular emphasis on cultural research methodologies and social innovation and entrepreneurship. His clinical and community practice background is in mental and behavioral health, economic sustainability and working with marginalized indigenous people. He enjoys running, reading, music, playing tennis, rugby, travel, and spending time with his family.

name: Paula Morelli, MSW, PhD (Filipino, Japanese, Spanish)

institution: University of Hawai'i

website: https://www.ucalgary.ca/journals/indigenous-social-development

Paula Toki Tanemura Araullo Morelli, a third-generation, mixed-ancestry Filipino, Spanish, Japanese born in Chicago and raised in Molokai and Oʻahu, is committed to social justice shaped by her parents’ WWII incarceration and work with Indigenous and minority groups. After retiring from the University of Hawaiʻi, she directed the Hawaiʻi program at Consuelo Foundation. She now serves as co-editor-in-chief of the Journal of Indigenous Social Development, focusing on Indigenous wellbeing.