Veivosaki-yaga: a culturally appropriate Indigenous research method in Fiji

Abstract

This article reports on the development of a new culturally sensitive approach to collecting group discussion data in the Pacific: veivosaki-yaga. The new approach was developed during a project on Technical and Vocational Education (TVET) in multicultural Fiji. One challenge was to gain understanding from villages of parental attitudes towards TVET. While focus groups proved to answer the purpose for Indian Fijian parents, they were deemed culturally inappropriate for Indigenous Fijian parents. As a ‘de-colonising’ Pacific methodology, veivosaki-yaga was judged to offer a culturally appropriate framework. Arising from strategic communication conventions in Indigenous Fijian culture, veivosaki-yaga means ‘worthwhile discussion’ – of serious topics. It differs from the now well-known Pacific methodology approach of talanoa, which is based on much more informal and free-flowing discussion. This paper does not engage the findings of the original project as such, but seeks to convey the value of a culturally appropriate methodological approach devised therein. It contributes to the currently evolving literature on Pacific methodologies in the field of qualitative educational research.

Keywords:

• Indigenous methodologies
• Fiji
• TVET

Notes

1. (Tagicakiverata, 2012).

2. Since October 2011 the term iTaukei has been introduced in government and public sphere discourse to describe the indigenous people of the Fiji Islands. The term Indians is to be used to describe inhabitants of Fiji who can trace their origins to India. However, there is still avid debate in Fiji regarding the use of the term iTaukei instead of Indigenous Fijians, and Indians instead of Indo-Fijians. In this paper we use the term Indigenous Fijians and Indian Fijians because we are comfortable with these terms.

3. Na cakacaka e vakatau saraga vei ira na gone ena nodra sasaga. Kevaka era ulu kaukauwa era na rawa ni cakacaka vinaka me vaka na qasenivuli, nasi, vuniwai se loya. ia ke sega e dodonu me ra saga tale eso na ka me vaka na vuli matai. O keda ga na itubutubu me tu vakarau me da qarava na nodra sasaga na luveda.

5. Au vakabauta me da solia vei ira na luveda na galala me ra digitaka na cakacaka era gadreva, ia me da kua ni vakawelewele na itubutubu ka me da vukei ira ena nodra sasaga. E bibi me da vakamacalataka vei ira na gone ni kevaka era ulu malumalumu e tu tale eso na tabana ni vuli me vakana TVET e rawa ni ra rawaka kina.

6. Na toso vinaka ni nodra vuli na luveda e vakatau saraga ena noda qarava vinaka na noda itavi na itubutubu.

7. Fiji now has mobile phone access for 93% of the population (PRIF, 2015, p. 6). Internet users were 41.8% of the population in 2015 (Internetworldstats, 2015). Eighty per cent of Facebook users use the app on their mobile phones (Nauwakarawa, 2015). The impact on young people is indicated by a new government edict which states that mobile phones are not allowed to be carried by students in Fiji schools unless given parental consent (Ahmed & Susu, 2015).