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Talanoa: Building a Pasifika Research Culture, edited by Peggy FairbairnDunlop and Eve Coxon. Auckland: Dunmore Publishing, 2014. isbn 978-1-927212-14-1; 224 pages. Paper, NZ$39.99.
Talanoa: Building a Pasifika Research Culture showcases twelve chapters from both established and emerging researchers of Pacific Islander descent. Its title, according to editors Peggy Fairbairn-Dunlop and Eve Coxon, refers to an online network that links New Zealand and Pacific Island universities and serves as a channel for sharing research ideas and findings among Pasifika students and researchers (also known as the Pacific Post Graduate Talanoa series). Chapters in this volume come from works shared during the first five years of the Talanoa series (2007-2012).
The first chapter, written by Fairbairn-Dunlop, provides a brief overview of the Talanoa series during this first five-year period: its origin, organization, and delivery, and its expansion to include staff on university campuses in the Pacific Islands. Fairbairn-Dunlop locates the strength of the program in its ability to facilitate the growth of the Pacific social science research community.
Karlo Mila, in chapter 2, tackles the stereotypes and dominant narratives about Pasifika peoples as she focuses her research on high-achieving Pasifika. She aligns her work with a "positive deviance" mode of inquiry, combined with a strengths-based approach and a participative mixedmethods process. In so doing, she brings to the fore alternative positions and narratives that have been otherwise ignored.
In chapter 3, Jared Mackley-Crump examines the festivalization of Pacific cultures in New Zealand, and he locates his study in the emerging area of festival studies. In this ethnographic and participant-driven research, he notes that little attention has been paid to Pacific festival space in New Zealand. He engages the themes of festival and community and roots his work in indigenous frames based on 'Epeli Hau'ofa's "sea of islands" and Tëvita Ka'ili's "tauhi va."
Chapter 4, by Charlotte Bedford, assesses the Recognised Seasonal Employer policy and asks the question: Is it delivering "wins" to employers, workers, and Island communities?...