A PhD on Pacific identities and wellbeing

In 2010, Karlo Mila completed her PhD that explored the culture, identities and health and wellbeing outcomes for Pacific peoples growing up in Aotearoa. She was searching for understanding about her own population group, Pacific peoples who grow up far from their islands of origin. Without fluency in language and far from homelands, how were they identifying and operating culturally? Did that make a difference? Did it impact on health and educational outcomes.

She found that those Pacific young people who felt proud of their Pacific identities [Tonga, Samoa, Niue, Cook Islands] and said that the values of these culture were still important to them were half as likely to have reported making a suicide attempt in the previous year. Those who felt accepted by people of their own Pacific ethnic background [Tongan, Samoan, Cook Islands, Niue,] and felt accepted by others [generally] were half as likely to be having suicidal thoughts in the previous year and seventy percent less likely to have made a suicide attempt in the previous year.

Recognising the better outcomes experienced by those who felt proud in their identities, strong in appreciating Pacific values, and accepted and connected by their own ethnic communities and others, she coined the term polycultural capital. Polycultural capital described the advantage, strengths and super-powers of Pacific peoples growing up in Aotearoa who were constantly exposed to different ways of operating culturally. Rather than framing them as caught between cultures, this emphasised the benefits of moving between cultural spaces and accumulating the distinctive knowledge paradigms, interpretive frameworks, values, ethics, priorities, beliefs and dominant perspectives prevalent in each culture. Karlo often describes polycultural capital more simply as two different bags filled with different resources and ways of knowing. One is the ‘gucci’ bag that is designed according to Western aesthetic and capital": expensive, ‘designer’, and filled literally with dollars. Metaphorically, this bag is also representative of qualifications, culture, ways of speaking, and knowing what to do in situations requiring cultural capital and ‘power’. For many Pacific migrants, this bag is representative of ‘the migrant dream’, hoping that their children would acquire this bag and all the power and success associated with it.

However, Karlo’s research showed that there was another bag that we could imagine as a finely woven basket. Similarly valuable when made from the finest woven threads, this metaphorically contained a whole different worldview that ascribed value differently. This basket contained a very different set of resources that helped you operate in ways that were considered appropriate, ethical, wise and educated in Pacific cultures. Her PhD showed that those who had both bags to draw from, when making sense of culturally differential circumstances were considerably advantaged compared. They were able to operate drawing from more than one paradigm, transcend the monocultural, and operate skilfully in different situations drawing on completely different - often opposing - key messages dominant in each culture. After completing her interviews and conceptualising polycultural capital, Karlo was determined to use this information to benefit Pacific peoples and for her PhD to make a tangible difference in the world.

Armed with this information, she applied for a postdoctoral fellowship intent on creating an intervention that strengthened pride in Pacific identities, and encouraged the uplifting power of Pacific values. She knew that acceptance across cultures was key, which prioritised relationships but also more cultural resources to make connections successfully.

Postdoctoral Research: Developing an Intervention

In 2010, funded by the Health Research Council, Karlo embarked on a research project exploring: “What is healing in a Pacific mental health context?” She began by designing the approach in the Department of Social Psychiatry at the Wellington School of Medicine, University of Otago under the supervision of Dr Sunny Collings and the mentorship of Tongan psychiatrist, Dr Siale ‘Alo Foliaki. Karlo was helped by two research assistants, Bianca Daniell and Ramona Tiatia to embark on this ambitious project.

This involved a deep dive into the mythology, archetypes, core cultural concepts, proverbs, cosmogony and narratives that could be considered fundamental to psyche among Moana peoples. In addition to this, interviews with Pacific knowledge holders, Pacific clinicians and Pacific mental health service-users were conducted.

Over two years she developed the core of the Mana Moana approach. This is named ‘The Taula’ (anchor). Based on a learning framework by Friere, this contained seventy core elements / concepts in Pacific languages that collectively create the canon of Mana Moana. Each concept was meticulously researched, included a referenced commentary, proverbs in multiple Pacific languages associated with these concepts, translations, and where relevant, a narrative associated with the concept.

Once the Taula was developed as a cultural resource, a retreat-based wānanga was held with leaders working in relevant fields: indigenous epistemology, linguistics, traditional healing, psychiatry, psychology, indigenous development, as well as cultural experts, matai, and leaders. The valuable feedback was that although the creation of the Mana Moana core concept repository with proverbs, translations, images, and accompanying narratives was acceptable, the approach would not be optimal unless it was informed by a healing logic aligned with the way Pacific peoples had healed others for millennia.

Karlo added another year of study to her postdoctoral research trying to determine what a coherent and clear intervention logic might look like, then going out to consult on that approach with more Pacific experts and run more focus groups to see if it was consistent with Pacific understandings, philosophical foundations, values and knowledge paradigms. The approach was tested via formal focus groups for acceptability, and consulted upon for feedback with multiple audiences in many different contexts (youth, elders, workplaces, churches, conferences, community gatherings, influential academics, and cultural leaders). Even though it added an extra year to her postdoctoral fellowship, this process ensured that the intervention approach had cultural integrity and wide buy-in from multiple stakeholders and the Pacific community. When she felt that she had reached saturation point and received enough positive feedback, insights for adaptation and widespread approval, she was ready for the next phase of the research.

The feasibility and acceptability phase of the research was housed within the University of Auckland. The University of Auckland had significant clinical trial and Pacific academic expertise held by Associate Professor Sally Merry and Dr Terry Fleming at the Werry Centre, and Dr Airini in Critical Education.