Choosing the Margins: The Role of Research in Indigenous Struggles for Social Justice PDF

Chaptr 12 CHOOSING THE MARGINS THE ROLE OF RESEARCH IN INDIGENOUS STRUGGLES FOR SOCIAL JUSTICE A nineteenth-century prophecy by a M ori leader predicted that the struggle of M ori people against colonialism would go on fo...

Chaptr 12 CHOOSING THE MARGINS THE ROLE OF RESEARCH IN INDIGENOUS STRUGGLES FOR SOCIAL JUSTICE A nineteenth-century prophecy by a M ori leader predicted that the struggle of M ori people against colonialism would go on forever and therefore the need to resist will be without end. is may appear to be a message without hope but it has become an exhortation to M ori people that our survival, our humanity, our worldview and language, our imagination and spirit, our very place in the world depends on our capacity to act for ourselves, to speak for ourselves, to engage in the world and the actions of our colonizers, to face them head on. M ori struggles for social justice in New Zealand are messy, noisy, simultaneously celebratory and demoralizing, hopeful and desperate. While there have been incremental gains, they have o en been made from the depths of despair, accepted reluctantly as the crumbs of compromise. e demands on scholars and intellectuals in similar contexts have been discussed in the revolutionary texts by writers such as Gramsci and Fanon, in feminist and indigenist literatures, and in research texts. In the research literature the issues are o en discussed in terms of the methodologies, ethics, theoretical and discursive representations, emancipatory possibilities and power relations associated with researching marginalized and vulnerable communities, the outsider Other, or within speci c populations and communities such as urban youth. Qualitative researchers are trained to ‘see things’. Researchers working in the eld of social injustice witness or ‘see things’ that may impact directly on their own relationships, identities, safety and freedom. Speaking for, and speaking out, can land a researcher in considerable trouble; being ‘named’ as a le ist researcher or native sympathizer is likewise a risk that is carried even in societies that value freedom of speech and of academic discovery. In these conservative times, the role of an Indigenous researcher and indeed of other researchers committed to producing research knowledge that documents social injustice, that 254 Decolonizing Methodologies recovers subjugated knowledges, that helps create spaces for the voices of the silenced to be expressed and ‘listened to’, and that challenges racism, colonialism and oppression is a risky business. is chapter writes from that messy intersection, from the borders of the vast and expanding territory that is the margin, that exists ‘outside’ the security zone, outside the gated and forti ed community. e rst part of this chapter revisits Chandra Mohanty’s cartography of struggles, as they are faced by Indigenous and marginalized communities.1 e purpose is to provide a sense of the landscape that researchers negotiate and seek to understand. In this rst part the chapter emphasizes the notion of struggle and what it means to live a life in struggle. e second part of the chapter examines some of the implications for Indigenous researchers who work in Indigenous and marginalized communities, communities that are in engaged struggle. ese researchers work the borders, betwixt and between institutions and communities, systems of power and systemic injustice, cultures of dominance and cultures in survival mode, politics and theory, theory and practice. Revisiting the Concept of Struggle Struggle, as many social activists have attested, is an important tool in the overthrow of oppression and colonialism. Struggle is a dynamic, powerful and important tool that is embedded in what at rst glance o en seems to be just part of the apparatus of Marxist rhetoric and radical discourse. In its Marxist revolutionary sense the concept of ‘struggle’ can also be associated with forms of psychological torture and political haranguing as individuals are coerced into losing their memories of a past regime or into informing on their family and friends. In its broader sense struggle is simply what life feels like when people are trying to survive in the margins, to seek freedom and better conditions, to seek social justice. Struggle is a tool of both social activism and theory. It is a tool that has the potential to enable oppressed groups to embrace and mobilize agency, and to turn the consciousness of injustice into strategies for change. Struggle can be mobilized as resistance and as transformation. It can provide the means for working things out ‘on the ground’, for identifying and solving problems of practice, for identifying strengths and weaknesses, for re ning tactics and uncovering deeper challenges. But, struggle can also be a blunt tool. As a blunt tool it has o en privileged patriarchy and sexism in Indigenous activist groups, or been used to commit groups to modes of operation that undermine the  12. Choosing the Margins 255 very values they espouse and expect of others. As a blunt instrument struggle can also promote actions that simply reinforce hegemony and that have no chance of delivering signi cant social change. Paulo Freire’s model of change argues that conscientization leads to action or struggle, when people learn to read the word (of injustice) and read the world (of injustice) they will act against injustice. In the M ori context, however, Graham Smith has argued that participation in struggle can and o en does come before a raised consciousness. Smith’s research has shown that people o en participated in struggles more as a solidarity with friends and family, or some other pragmatic motivation, than as a personal commitment to or knowledge about historical oppression, colonialism and the survival of M ori people. Along the way many of those people become more conscious of the politics of struggle in which they are engaged. As he points out, ‘M ori experience tends to suggest that these elements, [conscientization, resistance, transformative action], may occur in any order and indeed may occur simultaneously.’2 Struggle, then, can be viewed as group or collective agency rather than as individual consciousness. e political leaders of struggle need some form of collective consent or mandate to act and to sustain action over time. e story of struggle is also a story about activist leadership and collective consent, and the tension between these two processes (leading and consenting). It is in this area that much revolutionary literature tends to focus on the hegemonic role of intellectuals who occupy the establishment, their power to in uence others and decide what counts as legitimate knowledge. Struggle is also a theoretical tool for understanding agency and social change, for making sense of power relations and for interpreting the tension between academic views of political actions and activist views of the academy. eorizing the politics, psychology and pedagogy of struggle is the role of activist scholars and the organic intellectuals who work in that intersection between the community and the academy. It o en presents itself as a phenomenon that researchers ‘see’ when they see communities living on the edge and in crisis, when they attempt to interpret or make ethnographic sense of life in the margin, when they attempt to account for behaviours, attitudes and value systems, and when they attempt comparisons with their own communities and social class. People, families, organizations in marginalized communities struggle everyday; it is a way of life that is necessary for survival, and when theorized and mobilized can become a powerful strategy for transformation. 256 Decolonizing Methodologies Multiple Layers of Struggle e M ori struggle for decolonization is multilayered and multidimensional, and has occurred across multiple sites simultaneously. Graham Smith has argued that theorizing this struggle from a M ori framework of Kaupapa M ori has provided important insights about how transformation works and can be made to work for Indigenous communities.3 Similarly, for Leonie Pihama ‘Kaupapa M ori is a transformative power. To think and act in terms of Kaupapa M ori while experiencing colonization is to resist dominance.’4 In this section I focus more on the conditions that intersect or are external to this transformative process and that, at times, can work for or against change – can destabilize the struggle or present opportunities to be exploited, can provide creative resources or unleash a counter- hegemonic and narrow agenda of change. I conceptualize ve conditions or dimensions that have framed the struggle for decolonization. e rst I would de ne as a critical consciousness, an awakening from the slumber of hegemony, and the realization that action has to occur. e second condition I de ne as a way of reimagining the world and our position as M ori within the world, drawing upon a di erent epistemology and unleashing the creative spirit. is condition is what enables an alternative vision; it fuels the dreams of alternative possibilities. e third is concerned with ways in which di erent ideas, social categories and tendencies intersect: the coming together of disparate ideas, the events, the historical moment. is condition creates opportunities; it provides the moments when tactics can be deployed. e fourth condition I have de ned simply as movement or disturbance: the distracting counter-hegemonic movements or tendencies, the competing movements which traverse sites of struggle, the unstable movements that occur when the status quo is disturbed. e h is the concept of structure, the underlying code of imperialism, of power relations. is condition is grounded in reproducing material realities and legitimating inequalities and marginality. What I am suggesting, by privileging these layers over others, is that separately, together, and in combination with other ideas, these ve dimensions help map the conceptual terrain of struggle. e categorical terms being used are not of the same type and have not been motivated by a particular ‘model’. Rather, they re ect the multiple positions, spaces, discourses, languages, histories, textures and world views that are being contested, struggled over, resisted and reformulated by M ori.  12. Choosing the Margins 257 In writing a ‘cartography’ of the struggles facing ird World women, Chandra Mohanty has said that ‘the world (is) traversed with intersecting lines’.5 Along such intersecting lines are ideas, categories or tensions that o en connect with each other in di erent ways. ey are not necessarily oppositions or dualisms. ey create and are created by conditions that are inherently unstable, arbitrary and uncontrollable. She has also argued that one of the key features of struggle is the ‘simultaneity’ of oppressions that are fundamental to the experience of social and political marginality. Intersections can be conceptualized not only as intersecting lines but also as spaces that are created at the points where intersecting lines meet. Spaces created by intersecting ideas, tendencies or issues are sites of struggle that o er possibilities for people to resist. Making space within such sites has become a characteristic of many M ori struggles in education, health, research and social justice. What is slightly di erent between this notion and the idea of struggles ‘in the margins’ is that, when attached to a political idea such as rangatiratanga, o en translated as sovereignty or self-determination, all space in New Zealand can be regarded as M ori space. is takes the struggle out of speci cally ‘M ori contexts’ and into the spaces once regarded as the domain of the ‘settler’ or Pakeha community, such as large institutions like universities where M ori really are a small minority. Rather than see ourselves as existing in the margins as minorities, resistance initiatives have assumed that Aotearoa, New Zealand is ‘our place’, all of it, and that there is little di erence, except in the mind, between, for example, a Te Kohanga Reo where M ori are the majority but the state is there, and a university, where M ori are the minority and the state is there. Whereas we can conceive of space geographically and politically, it is important to claim those spaces that are still taken for granted as being possessed by the West. Such spaces are intellectual, theoretical and imaginative. One of these is a space called Kaupapa M ori. is concept has emerged from lessons learned through Te Kohanga Reo and Kura Kaupapa M ori and has been developed as a theory in action by M ori people. Graham Smith has argued for Kaupapa M ori as an intervention into theoretical spaces, particularly within the sphere of education.6 Kaupapa M ori research refers to M ori struggles to claim research as a space within which M ori can also operate. Given the history of the Western research gaze of Indigenous peoples, it may seem unusual that M ori should take hold of the idea of research and attempt to apply it to our own questions. ere are imperatives which have forced that upon us, such as the constant need to prove our own history and to prove the 258 Decolonizing Methodologies worth of our language and values. M ori and other Indigenous peoples, however, also have their own questions and curiosities; they have imaginations and ways of knowing that they seek to expand and apply. Searching for solutions is very much part of a struggle to survive; it is represented within our own ‘traditions’ for example, through creation stories, values and practices. e concept of ‘searching’ is embedded in our world views. Researching in this sense, then, is not something owned by the West, or by an institution or discipline. Research begins as a social, intellectual and imaginative activity. It has become disciplined and institutionalized with certain approaches empowered over others and accorded a legitimacy, but it begins with human curiosity and a desire to solve problems. It is at its core an activity of hope. One criticism of educators who have emphasized the emancipatory potential of schooling is that they have o en ignored or diminished the role in social agency of such qualities as hope, optimism and the need to strive for utopian goals. Some radical educators have, in fact, argued that the notion of hope as the basis of a language of possibility is really nothing more than a ‘trick of counter hegemony’, and that hope is employed for ideological e ect rather than for sound theoretical reasons. In other words hope as a vision of possibility contains no immanent political project and as such has to be sacri ced on the altar of empirical reality.7 I have stated previously the sense of noisy optimism that has been a characteristic of M ori politics. Here I will argue for the importance in M ori struggles of the imagination and of the capacity shown by M ori to constantly imagine and reimagine, to create and recreate our world. e capacity of colonized peoples to continue to engage, against all odds, in this imaginative, creative activity was the focus of quite systematic imperial and colonial practices that are encapsulated in the concept of dehumanization. e dehumanizing tendencies within imperial and colonial practices are deeply encoded. ese practices serve constantly to deny that colonized people actually have ideas of our own, can create new ideas, and have a rich knowledge base from which to draw. As I have stated previously, I would not claim that, on its own, imagination is a critical tool or contains within it a political project that is connected inherently to emancipation. What I will argue is that if they are to work, to be e ective, political projects must also touch on, appeal to, make space for, and release forces that are creative and imaginative. is point is made in Smith’s identi cation of the signi cant elements  12. Choosing the Margins 259 within Kaupapa M ori. He argues that the Kaupapa has to ‘grab people’ emotionally; it has to excite them and ‘turn them on’ to new possibilities.8 e danger in such forces is that they do not necessarily lead to emancipatory outcomes. ey are inherently uncontrollable, which is possibly why this aspect is excluded from decolonization programmes and other attempts at planned resistance. However, there is a point in the politics of decolonization where leaps of imagination are able to connect the disparate, fragmented pieces of a puzzle, ones that have di erent shadings, di erent shapes, and di erent images within them, and say that ‘these pieces belong together’. e imagination allows us to strive for goals that transcend material, empirical realities. For colonized peoples this is important because the cycle of colonialism is just that, a cycle with no end point, no emancipation. e material locates us within a world of dehumanizing tendencies, one that is constantly re ected back on us. To imagine a di erent world is to imagine us as di erent people in the world. To imagine is to believe in di erent possibilities, ones that we can create. Decolonization must o er a language of possibility, a way out of colonialism. e writing of M ori, of other Indigenous peoples and of anti-/post-colonial writers would suggest, quite clearly, that that language of possibility exists within our own alternative, oppositional ways of knowing. Even though these may not be seen to connect with current socio-economic realities, the fact that we adhere to, that we can imagine a connection suggests a resistance to being classi ed according to the de nitions of a dominant group. Furthermore, the language of possibility, a language that can be controlled by those who have possession of it, allows us to make plans, to make strategic choices, to theorize solutions. Imagining a di erent world, or reimagining the world, is a way into theorizing the reasons why the world we experience is unjust and posing alternatives to such a world from within our own world views. Implications for Researchers: Choosing the Margins e metaphor of the margin has been very powerful in the social sciences and humanities for understanding social inequality, oppression, disadvantage and power. It is used alongside other similar concepts such as borders, boundaries, bridges, centre–periphery, and insider–outsider to demarcate people in spatial terms as well as in socio-economic, political and cultural terms. Anthropology uses the 260 Decolonizing Methodologies term ‘liminal’ to capture some of the elements that are lived by people in the margins. Gloria Ladson-Billings uses the term in this way: ‘ us the work of the liminal perspective is to reveal the ways that dominant perspectives distort the realities of the other in an e ort to maintain power relations that continue to disadvantage those who are locked out of the mainstream.’9 Feminists and minority scholars such as African American writers have worked the metaphor of the margin, the hyphen or the border into social theories of oppression and marginalization, and of resistance and possibility.10 Gloria Anzaldua, for example, writes of the border where she grew up literally as the border between the United States and Mexico and guratively as the border and intersection between languages, between home and school, between having and not having, and as a site for positive identity formation.11 African American writer bell hooks wrote of the radical possibility of ‘choosing the margins’ as a site of belonging as much as a site of struggle and resistance.12 e critical issue bell hooks and other writers such as Stuart Hall13 have identi ed is that meaningful, rich, diverse, interesting lives are lived in the margins; these are not empty spaces occupied by people whose lives don’t matter, or people who spend their lives on the margins trying to escape. Many groups who end up there ‘choose’ the margins, in the sense of creating cultures and identities there: for example, the deaf community, gay and lesbian communities, minority ethnic groups, and Indigenous groups. ere are also researchers, scholars and academics who actively choose the margins, who choose to study people marginalized by society, who themselves have come from the margins or who see their intellectual purpose as being scholars who will work for, with, and alongside communities who occupy the margins of society. If one is interested in society then it is o en in the margins that aspects of a society are revealed as microcosms of the larger picture or as examples of a society’s underbelly. In a research sense having a commitment to social justice, to changing the conditions and relations that exists in the margins is understood as being ‘socially interested’ or as having a ‘standpoint’. For researchers who come from the communities concerned it may also be understood as ‘insider’ research. Kaupapa M ori research can be understood in this way as an approach to research that is socially interested, that takes a position – for example, that M ori language, knowledge and culture are valid and legitimate – and has a standpoint from which research is developed, conducted, analysed, interpreted and assessed. Some of these approaches are also referred to as critical research, as social justice research, or as community action research.  12. Choosing the Margins 261 ere are also speci c methodologies that have been developed out of the work these approaches have initiated. Participatory action research, Kaupapa M ori research, oral histories, critical race theory and testimonio are just some examples of methodologies that have been created as research tools that work with marginalized communities, that facilitate the expression of marginalized voices, and that attempt to represent the experience of marginalization in genuine and authentic ways. Focusing on researching with marginalized groups foregrounds many of the issues that are faced by researchers working in the face of inequality and social injustice. As leading researchers in the social justice area have already established, it is crucial that researchers working in this critical research tradition pay particular attention to matters that impact on the integrity of research and the researcher, continuously develop their understandings of ethics and community sensibilities, and critically examine their research practices.14 A third dimension to researching in the margins is that the researchers who choose to research with and for marginalized communities are o en in the margins themselves in their own institutions, disciplines and research communities. It may be that the researchers come from a minority social group or it may be that their interest in and perceived support for marginalized communities unsettles the status quo or questions both implicitly and explicitly dominant approaches to research. Whatever the reasons for this ‘occupational hazard’, feminist and minority group scholars have amply demonstrated that researching with marginalized groups or about the concerns of such groups can have a signi cant negative impact on careers, and therefore on the perceived expertise and intellectual authority of the researchers concerned. M ori researchers and academics have also written of the impact of community needs and institutional demands on their work lives and approaches to work and life as a M ori person.15 While communities may want to work with a M ori researcher, they may be quite unaware of the risks that many academics face when researching in the margins. One example of this is the pressure from the academy to turn research into peer-reviewed publications and expectations from communities that researchers should not be building their careers by researching ‘them’. Increasingly, research is viewed as an activity that must be measured and assessed for quality as part of a researcher’s performance, and an individual’s performance is linked directly to a department’s and institution’s ranking. Researchers working for social justice are likely to be involved in hours of work that do not lead to a ‘quality’ academic publication – they may contribute to major social 262 Decolonizing Methodologies change, but their research ranking will not re ect their contribution to society. ere are also implications and risks for researchers who work within the ‘insider’ frame. e known methodological risks are seen from one perspective to be about the potential for bias, lack of distance and lack of objectivity, and from another research perspective to be about the potential to see the trees but not the forest, to underplay the need for rigour and integrity as a researcher and to con ate the research role with an advocacy role. ere are other risks, however, in terms of the relationships and accountabilities to be carried by an insider researcher. Unlike those borne by their colleagues, these extra responsibilities can be heavy, not just because of what people might say directly but because of what researchers imagine the community might be saying. It can be di cult because of the magnitude and number of urgent tasks that seem to require action and support. Researchers make strategic decisions to deal with urgent issues while sacri cing the research and ultimately their careers. Mentoring by other Indigenous scholars who have made their way through the system can provide some support, although these senior scholars are few and far between and are not always the best exemplars themselves of how to balance a life and maintain research while working with communities to make a positive di erence. Many of the social issues and challenges that confront marginalized communities will also be part of the biography and social network of an insider Indigenous researcher. Visiting relatives who are sick, looking a er grandchildren or someone’s teenager, writing submissions, being the breadwinner for more than one household, being in constant mourning, having to ‘rush home’ to deal with emergencies, and being at the constant call of a community are o en a very normal part of life for Indigenous researchers who are also trying to make their way in careers. While every researcher may claim to have similar responsibilities, and at some point to have taken on similar burdens, there is a qualitative di erence between the conditions of people living in marginalized communities and those in middle-class suburbia. Marginalized Populations, Research and Ethics For researchers working with ‘human subjects or participants’ the terms ‘marginalized and vulnerable peoples’ appear in the literature in relation to research ethics. Marginalized populations are o en  12. Choosing the Margins 263 described as groups who have little access to power – for example, women, ethnic minority groups, gay and lesbian communities, children and youth. Vulnerable populations are also marginalized from power but are considered particularly vulnerable because they have even less individual agency to provide informed consent. Vulnerable groups include prisoners, armed forces personnel, people who are mentally ill, children, some groups with disabilities, and groups who can be and are more likely to be vulnerable to coercion. e signi cant event that awakened Western sensibilities to research abuses with marginalized and vulnerable populations was the Holocaust and the research undertaken by Nazi doctors on Jewish, Roma (Gypsies) and other groups imprisoned in the death camps. e Nuremberg Code of Ethics emerged from this momentous legacy. According to David Weisstub, e Nuremberg Legacy represents almost a mythic chapter in the history of understanding of research ethics…. Nuremberg is a distant collective memory. For most of us Nuremberg emerged as a code and a symbol both in its principles representing the foundations of civilized medical practice and research and in its symbolization of the triumph of the democratic ideal over fascism.16 e Nuremberg Code was formed out of the ashes of the Holocaust through the Nuremberg Tribunal, and was an attempt to ensure that the types of research carried out by Nazi scientists would never happen again. e Code gives recognition to the fact that there are likely to be groups of people who are especially vulnerable when it comes to research, and that these groups would also most likely exist in the margins of society. It is also the rst acknowledgement that there are some basic moral principles by which researchers must abide. From an Indigenous perspective the Nuremberg Code came too late; the history of research as exploitation was already embedded in European imperialism in the lead-up to the twentieth century. And for other groups of people such as women, African American males and many Indigenous communities, the existence of the Nuremberg Code has not prevented research abuses from occurring. ere have been a series of scandals that have highlighted the ways in which marginalized and vulnerable groups continue to be exposed to unethical research. In New Zealand the Cervical Cancer Inquiry, New Zealand’s ‘darkest hour’ in research, according to Tolich, came about primarily because of the e orts of two feminist investigators, who persisted in their inquiries despite the blocks and barriers that were put in front of them 264 Decolonizing Methodologies by institutional and professional systems.17 It was only a er the Cervical Cancer Inquiry that academic institutions in New Zealand were required by legislation (s161 of the Education Act 1989) to institute policies and practices for conducting ethical research with human subjects. e Nuremberg Code was later followed by the World Medical Association Declaration of Helsinki (1964) and, in the United States, by the Belmont Report (1979). ese three documents are referred to as ‘landmarks’ in establishing a history of ethical research conduct. 18 ere is a di erence, however, between professional ethics codes of practice, which are essentially self-monitoring and voluntary, and legislated or o cially regulated codes of practice. e Nuremberg Code has rarely been used in legal cases.19 e Helsinki Declaration is a professional voluntary code for medical practitioners who belong to the World Medical Association. e Belmont Report was an o cial report of the US Department of Health, Education and Welfare. What is known in the United States as e Common Rule is a set of Federal policies adopted by the major US agencies that conduct or fund research with human subjects. In New Zealand there are several legal instruments that cover aspects of ethical research with human subjects, including the Education Act 1989, Human Rights Act 1999, Health and Disability Services Human Rights Code and the Health Information Privacy Code. e Treaty of Waitangi is also incorporated into research and ethics policies and consultation with M ori communities is part of some institutions’ requirements when the research involves M ori participants. New Zealand also has a National Ethics Advisory Committee, a National Bioethics Committee and other specialist committees that deal with single issues such as reproductive birth technologies. Why is this background important when discussing issues that relate to Indigenous peoples? ere is one signi cant reason and three other contextual ones. e signi cant reason is to establish the case history, in a sense, for why M ori as peoples need to be recognized as a marginalized group. e literature uses the word ‘populations’ rather than peoples and there is a distinction in international law between these two terms. As a marginalized population M ori are basically just another group or set of individuals and communities. As peoples M ori have claims to self-determination. ere is a risk, in fragmenting small groups of M ori into categories of marginalization and vulnerability, of losing sight of the overall picture of M ori as an Indigenous and marginalized people in New Zealand. e risk becomes especially important in discussions around the role of the Treaty of Waitangi in  12. Choosing the Margins 265 protecting M ori rights to develop as M ori and also to be treated as equal citizens. e contextual issues and history are important because research is an international activity conducted across the globe by researchers from di erent nations, institutions, disciplines and approaches. e norms of research conduct are developed in this environment. Furthermore, legal precedents established in other Western jurisdictions such as the United States, Britain, Canada and Australia have weight in the New Zealand context, especially if the issue is related to Indigenous communities. Finally, science and technology are making rapid advances into areas that challenge existing notions of ethics on a broad scale, and M ori attempts to articulate and gain recognition for a di erent knowledge and ethical system are in a race against time. In this context being better informed is an important protection. Ongoing Marginalization of M ori Recent public discourses on the place of M ori and the Treaty of Waitangi position non-M ori as victims of discrimination because of the perceived ‘extra’ special rights that M ori have to be ‘consulted’, to have our language and culture recognized, to have Treaty of Waitangi protections built into legislation and policy frameworks. It would be quite fair to say that M ori have engaged in a long struggle to make such inroads as part of making the Treaty of Waitangi ‘real’ as the foundational instrument of the nation. M ori have also seen this process as being necessary to ful l their visions of self-determination and also to ful l and bene t from the rights of citizenship. It is this last point about citizenship that brings us back to the question of marginalization. In almost every social index M ori are disproportionately represented as disadvantaged, even when statistical analyses control for class factors such as income levels. Furthermore, the long-term systemic nature of disadvantage has constituted patterns of participation by M ori people in society that are di erent from mainstream Pakeha norms and as a consequence tend to challenge taken-for-granted policies and practices of institutions. One simple example would be the impact of under-achievement at secondary school on adult second-chance learning and on the average age of M ori in postgraduate education. M ori participation rates in tertiary education are among the highest in the OECD, but the level at which M ori are participating is at a low second-chance level, and is a 266 Decolonizing Methodologies direct consequence of the failure of schooling to deliver achievement to M ori. Many M ori students enter tertiary education through bridging programmes; they tend to be older and are more likely to be women; they tend to be part-time students in comparison to non-M ori; and it takes them much longer to complete a degree quali cation. Furthermore, they have a disproportionately higher take-up rate for loans and, because they are less likely on completion to move into higher-paying positions, they take longer to repay their loans. In summary, the pattern of participation in society reinforces disadvantage. Whether one drives through New Zealand literally or drives through New Zealand as a gurative journey to understand social in/equality, M ori communities are on the margins of the economy and society. In the late 1980s New Zealand began a signi cant neo-liberal programme of structural adjustment, of deregulation and re-regulation of the economy, and major reforms of education, health, and the welfare system.20 e neo-liberal agenda with its continuous process of reform has had a profound e ect on New Zealand society, and a er two decades has now produced a generation of young people for whom the neo- liberal ideologies are normal and taken for granted. In education neo- liberalism is marked by a discourse of education as a marketplace, with parents and students as consumers and clients, teachers and schools as self-managing providers of services, and curriculum knowledge as a commodity that can be traded in or traded up for social goodies such as well-being and social status. e reform process redesigned the way schools were administered; it redesigned the role of the principal government agency that was responsible for education. It created a new agency to review and assess school performance; a new curriculum framework; a new quali cations framework, with a new agency to accredit quali cations and institutions; a user-pays system for post- secondary education; and a competitive environment through its funding arrangements. Private providers of post-secondary education and training were until recently able to compete with public institutions for public funding and aspire to attain degree-granting status. In the neo-liberal concept of the individual, M ori people in the 1980s presented a potential risk to the legitimacy of the new vision because M ori aspirations were deeply located in history, in cultural di erences, and in the values of collectivity; even the M ori concept of family or whanau seemed threatening. When the neo-liberal agenda was implemented, however, M ori communities were already embarked on their own educational revolution. e forward momentum of M ori development at that time has played a signi cant role in challenging the  12. Choosing the Margins 267 reform agenda to accommodate or at least attempt to make space for M ori aspirations. Jane Kelsey has argued that at times M ori were the only group in New Zealand society actually contesting the reforms in any serious way.21 e development of Te Kohanga Reo sparked and continues to inspire the development of a range of M ori initiatives in education that have developed as alternative models within and outside the current system, from early childhood to post-secondary tertiary education. e alternative models include Kura Kaupapa M ori, M ori language immersion schools that developed outside the state and were included as a separate category of education in the Education Amendment Act 1989, and Wananga or tribal degree-granting institutions that were also included as a category of the Act. ese alternatives were M ori-initiated institutions based on di erent conceptions of what education was about. ey were community e orts that challenged the taken-for-granted hegemony of schooling and, as argued by Graham Smith, revolutionized M ori thinking by demonstrating that M ori people could free their minds from the colonizer and exercise agency in a purposeful, tactical and constructive way.22 ese educational alternatives did not begin with active state support and even a er they were included in legislation there was no supportive infrastructure to assist them. In the case of the Wananga the three institutions took a claim to the Waitangi Tribunal related to capital expenditure. e Tribunal ruled in their favour and two of the Wananga have settled their claim with the Crown; they now have resources to develop their capital infrastructure. I want to emphasize the point that the M ori development momentum was already in progress when the neo-liberal reform process began. is meant that M ori had a platform for challenging those aspects of the reform process that seemed to threaten M ori development, and a platform for engaging with the process in order to in uence change. is is not to say that the reform process was welcoming of M ori participation; in fact, M ori had to make serious demands to be included or to be heard. At times overseas experts were brought in to dismiss M ori concerns or show how those concerns would be addressed by the new structures. Nor can we say that M ori were particularly well organized or mobilized: in fact, the early reforms that privatized the state industries such as forestry created massive M ori unemployment and a high degree of community stress. e signi cance of the revolutionized thinking created by the development of Te Kohanga Reo was that in the absence of organized resistance there was enough critique to provide a counter-hegemonic possibility and to 268 Decolonizing Methodologies have it voiced at every opportunity available. e point is that if M ori had been in disarray, without any alternative models, the reform process would have run a di erent and probably a more devastating course. As it was, the reform process had a disproportionately negative impact on M ori communities, widening disparities between M ori and non- M ori in educational achievement, health and economic status. What has become even clearer in the twenty- rst century is the way in which policies aimed at M ori continue to resonate and recycle colonizing narratives. e discourse might change subtly – with terms shi ing from M ori to whanau, hapu, iwi, to urban M ori and iwi M ori, and the unit of problem de nition switching from tribes to whanau, from M ori women to M ori parents, from M ori providers to M ori consultants – but the underlying racialized tensions remain constant. e subtext is that M ori are responsible for their own predicament as a colonized people and citizenship for M ori is a ‘privilege’ for which we must be eternally grateful. Marginalization is a consequence of colonization and the price for social inclusion is still expected to be the abandonment of being ‘M ori’. e impact of this sustained narrative on M ori is a growing fragmentation within communities, alongside a parallel urgency to redevelop and recentre ourselves around common baseline symbols and aspirations – for example, Mason Durie’s three conceptualizations of ‘living as M ori, being a citizen of the world, and M ori well-being and good health’.23 e tension between fragmentation and coming together is an almost impossible situation: in many cases, at our most vulnerable points, fractures occur, families fragment, core relationships between parents and children break down and M ori people become alienated from themselves, from their extended families and communities. It is neither accidental nor genetic that M ori mental health issues have risen dramatically in the last two decades, so that they rank as one of the most important health issues for M ori. Marginalization as a process as well as a state of a airs impacts at multiple levels and sites. M ori people are marginalized from mainstream New Zealand society. Some M ori people are able to ‘choose’ the margins by embracing their M ori identities and participating in M ori society and culture. Some M ori are alienated from M ori society. is occurs through a range of mechanisms or social, economic and political processes. It may simply be that geographic distance from their home is a barrier to participation, or that the loss of M ori language and culture is seen as a barrier. Some people, by virtue of being ‘institutionalized’ or enveloped into a system of care and protection, are removed from their social and  12. Choosing the Margins 269 cultural supports. Other groups of M ori – for example, ones who have come together around a special interest – may nd themselves excluded or alienated from existing M ori power structures, but still function as M ori. en there are probably M ori who are alienated from M ori and mainstream society – for example, people who have committed crimes against their own communities may never be welcomed back home; they have in e ect been excluded from their own society. Researchers in the Margins As stated earlier, researchers who choose to research in the margins are at risk of becoming marginalized themselves in their careers and workplaces. One strategy for overcoming this predicament is to ‘embrace’ the work and commit to building a career from that place. As writers such as bell hooks and Gloria Anzaldua have argued, the margins are also sites of possibilities that are exciting and ‘on the edge’. Cultures are created and reshaped; people who are o en seen by the mainstream as dangerous, unruly, disrespectful of the status quo and distrustful of established institutions are also innovative in such conditions; they are able to design their own solutions, they challenge research and society to nd the right solutions. Researchers who work in the margins need research strategies that enable them to survive, to do good research, to be active in building community capacities, to maintain their integrity, manage community expectations of them and mediate their di erent relationships. Kaupapa M ori research developed out of this challenge. As Graham Smith, Leonie Pihama and others who write in this tradition have demonstrated, Kaupapa M ori research encourages M ori researchers to take being M ori as a given, to think critically and address structural relations of power, to build upon cultural values and systems and contribute research back to communities that are transformative. ere are strategies that researchers can employ that will enable them to build strong relationships with di erent communities. rough experience M ori researchers have also learned skills and principles that work well if practised in sensitive and nuanced ways. ese might be as simple as focusing on building good relationships and ‘showing one’s face’ as the rst step in a relationship. But they are also about building networks of people who have stronger links into communities, and building community capacities so that people can do the research themselves. 270 Decolonizing Methodologies One of the anxieties that researchers may have is that when communities have the power to determine their own research they might not choose a M ori researcher, even if he or she has all the right skills. at is a risk and a challenge. Many communities would want to choose the best researcher available or the researcher from their own community or area. O en their choice is ‘brokered’ by a funding agency, more precisely a government funding agency who may not know of M ori researchers, or may not exactly prefer a M ori researcher. Experienced community organizations are also learning what they need from researchers, both M ori and non-M ori. In other Indigenous contexts, for example, some tribal nations in North America have protocols for researchers and their tribal structures have specialist research directors who manage all research on their nation. What is possibly very di erent in Aotearoa New Zealand is the growing capacity of M ori researchers across many di erent elds and disciplines of study. In the New Zealand context M ori scholars can assemble quite large and multidisciplinary research collaborations; there are a growing number of independent M ori researchers working with communities; and there are funding agencies keen to support M ori research capacity development. In what he calls a ‘sociology of absences’, legal sociologist Boaventura de Sousa Santos calls for an ecology of knowledge/s that enables alternative ways of knowing and scienti c knowledge to coexist, and argues that there can be no global social justice without global cognitive justice.24 At the heart of this engagement in social justice and Indigenous research are questions about knowledge, education, participation and development. ere are enduring questions about power relations, about agency and structure, ethics and methodologies. Research is simply one site at which these issues intersect. Research is important because it is the process for knowledge production; it is the way we constantly expand knowledge. Research for social justice expands and improves the conditions for justice; it is an intellectual, cognitive and moral project, o en fraught, never complete, but worthwhile. Notes 1 Mohanty, Chandra (1991), ‘Cartographies of Struggle: ird World Women and the Politics of Feminism’, in ird World Women and the Politics of Feminism, eds C. Mohanty, A. Russo and L. Torres, Indiana University Press, Bloomington, pp. 1–47.