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Professor Peggy Fairbairn-Dunlop ... "for too long we have been the subjects of other people’s policies." Photo: Josephine Latu/PMC
Pacific.Scoop
By Josephine Latu
New Zealand’s first professor of Pacific studies, Tagaloatele Peggy Fairbairn-Dunlop, wants to see more Pacific Islanders at decision-making levels and she believes postgraduate education is the key to achieving this goal.
Dr Fairbairn-Dunlop has begun her new position at AUT University’s Institute of Public Policy with a clear drive to increase the number of Pacific Island students at postgraduate level and to cultivate “robust” Pasifika research and methodologies.
“For too long in the Pacific, and for Pacific Islanders in New Zealand as well, we have been the subjects of other people’s policies,” she told Pacific Scoop before today’s formal powhiri and Pasifika welcome.
“We have to educate our Pacific Island students to take part in and be able to sit confidently at national and decision-making tables, as well as sitting at the village fono.”
Professor Fairbairn-Dunlop describes her own approach to research as “hands-on and more practical”.
She spent 25 years of her life working in Pacific nations, including 15 years at the University of the South Pacific’s School of Agriculture at Alafua campus in Samoa, researching areas such as semi-subsistence economies and agricultural development, rural development and women in households.
Her current research focus is centred around Pacific family systems and how to maintain the security of these cultural networks in the face of social change.
Significant step
Professor Peggy Fairbairn-Dunlop ... her appointment a significant step in Pacific research. Photo: Josephine Latu/PMC
Professor Fairbairn-Dunlop’s appointment marks a significant step in Pacific research development at AUT University whose new campus in Manukau is set to open next year, catering to the large number of Māori and Pasifika students in the area.
“There is little doubt that Professor Fairbairn-Dunlop is one of the Pacific’s leading researchers,” said AUT’s Pro Vice-Chancellor Research Professor Ian Shirley.
“Not only does Professor Fairbairn-Dunlop hold the chiefly title of Tagaloatele but she has also built an outstanding reputation as a researcher and a scholar.”
As the 2006-2009 inaugural director of Victoria University’s Pacific research unit, Va’aomanū Pasifika, Professor Fairbairn-Dunlop initiated the ongoing Pacific postgraduate Talanoa Network, which allows Pasifika students from different New Zealand universities to meet for biweekly interactive videoconferencing seminars.
The primary goal is to increase Pasifika numbers at the postgraduate level. Source: Govt Education Count
Her primary goal as AUT’s professor of Pacific studies is to increase Pasifika numbers at the postgraduate level, and to develop students who “value and understand Pacific Island knowledge”.
“It doesn’t matter what area they go into. We need a critical mass of skilled and confident student. We have to secure ourselves, economically socially, and in social participation,” she said.
“As Pacific researchers we need to review and document our own Pacific knowledge systems and research methodologies and the ways these may have changed over time, and how we are visioning our present and our futures by exploring past beliefs.
“It’s part of who we are.”
She said that since a lot of Pacific Island knowledge is transmitted through oral culture, there was a need to document as well as critique it.
According to the AUT annual report, 10 percent of the 23,715 students at AUT University were Pasifika and 10 percent Māori.
From 2007, government education counts showed a total of 30,852 Pasifika students were enrolled at NZ universities, 29,297 of this number being domestic. The report also showed that 3.6 percent of Pasifika students were postgraduate, less than half the national average
* Professor Fairbairn-Dunlop’s powhiri ceremony at AUT’s Nga Wai o Horotiu marae today is at 9am followed by a Pasifika welcome at the Wellesley campus conference centre at 10am.
Josephine Latu is a masters in communication studies student at AUT University and attached to the Pacific Media Centre.
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Congrats to Tagaloatele!!
Professor Fairbairn-Dunlop,
Congratulations Professor Fairbairn-Dunlop. You may not know me but I know Samoa and the culture like the back of my hand.. My Research Topic for 2009 Research is ” Samoa National Culture and Entrepreneurship. My work involved redefining the Samoan Culture thus allowing our Pacific Island Research Students to benefit with wider universal research methodologies and broader international conventional wisdom and literatures. I am determined in raising the standard of Pacific Island Tertiary Education in particular Research and Management. I am also aiming to work on promoting the significance in designing and developing the Samoan and other Pacific Island appropriate Research Ethics within New Zealand. Tertiary Education Providers and align them with Pacific Island cultures so that to ensure both students and providers respect our protocols, cultures, beleifs and values also be aware of the significance of cross culture.
By the way, I am wondering if you are aware of a Samoa Patent or Trademark Holder Group here in NZ or even back home. Please help if you can because I desperately want to make contact with them and share creativity.
Thursday 12- Friday 13 at Massey University Wellington, 10 Pacific Pioneers will showcase their Research Work at the Pasifika Massey Network Annual Conference, Massey University Wellington campus. My work mentioned above is one of the 10 successful work chosen.
Yes I know Alafua college. I am an old st Marys College girl Vaimoso and my family live at Malifa Apia opposite the Government Schools. I hope that I will get the opportunity to meet with you in Wellington. Stay cool.
Leutele