A PĀKEHĀ PERSPECTIVE ON UNDERTAKING CROSS-CULTURALRESEARCH ON MĀORI AND MORIORI MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS

Abstract

There is a long history in Aotearoa of Pākehā researchers studying Aotearoa’s Indigenous cultures. Where such research has emphasised perceived deficits and thereby reinforced negative stereotypes, a damaging legacy has remained (George 2020, 678). As Māori scholar Linda Tuhiwai Smith (2012, 1) notes, ‘the word itself, “research,” is probably one of the dirtiest words in the Indigenous world’s vocabulary’.

A growing number of Pākehā researchers are striving to alter this perception, and to conduct research with and for (rather than on or about) Aotearoa’s Indigenous peoples using Indigenous methodologies grounded in Indigenous ontologies and epistemologies. This article uses an example of a research project on Māori and Moriori musical instruments as a case study to explore how Pākehā researchers can research Māori and Moriori culture on Indigenous peoples' terms, and presents some autoethnographic reflections on the challenges and benefits of doing so from a Pākehā perspective. In Aotearoa’s current political climate, in which tensions between Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples are running high (owing to debates around the controversial 2024 Treaty Principles Bill), these reflections are being offered at a critical time in this nation’s history.