Ma Te Whānau Te Huarahi Motuhake: Whānau Participatory Action Research groups

Abstract

Whānau must lead their own development and solutions to work towards individual and collective whānau wellbeing for the future. Whānau are experts of their everyday lived experiences and hold the knowledge of their stories (past and present), aspirations, issues and complex dynamics that exist between whānau members and their extended and external relationships. This paper offers information and insights about Participatory Action Research (PAR) and PAR groups as realistic options when considering methods for research with whānau. In order to achieve this, the paper will describe Participatory Action Research (PAR), whānau PAR groups, alignment with Kaupapa Maori Research, pre-testing application with whānau and feedback received from a whānau PAR group. participatory action research, Kaupapa Māori research, oral histories, critical race theory and testimony are just some examples of methodologies that have been created as research tools that work with marginalised communities, that facilitate the expression of marginalised voices and that attempt to re-present the experience of marginalisation in genuine and authentic ways. (p. 7) Community PAR research is described as an 'orientation' to research that recognises community members as experts about the phenomena of interest and allows the meaning and usefulness of research to be informed by their every-day experience and understanding. PAR focuses concurrently on creating action (or change) and research (or understanding) and includes an action research cycle of planning, action, observation and reflection (Jensen, Kaiwai, Greenaway & Conway, 2005). The PAR approach requires active research participation and ownership by people in communities who are motivated to identify and address issues that concern them. Therefore research is co- constructed and informed at all stages by the identified community for that community. This is a departure from research being conducted by experts who extract information from a community and use it for purposes which may not directly benefit that community. PAR research uses the action reflection cycle of experiential learning and therefore is not research which is completed with the hope that action will follow but it is action which is researched, changed and re-researched in progressive cycles (Wadsworth, 1998). The development of knowledge that occurs during the process is empowering for communities who are enabled to find their own solutions to local issues and then

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