76Anonymous recruitment

With regards to the survey, the link to the online survey form was sent via email to contacts of mine who lived in Aotearoa New Zealand, but who might have had contacts living abroad who fitted the criteria. They were asked to forward and share the link with people who they thought might be interested and who fit the criteria. The link was sent via email by myself, and was shared on my own personal Facebook profile page with my networks in the hope that others would share with people who they thought might be suitable. Fortunately, an online Māori news channel; TangataWhenua.com online news broadcaster reposted the link (and corresponding story) about the survey, which was posted on their website and their Facebook page (DigitalMāori, 2012). This snowballing effect took off fairly quickly and after two days, there were 139 responses.

Interview guidelines

To ensure that interviews were semi-structured, I produced a set of key domains to guide the interview process. These were submitted as part of my ethics application, and later used in the focus groups and individual interviews. The initial guidelines were high-level areas of inquiry, or domains that were relevant to my research questions.

These high-level domains were then developed as I progressed through the focus groups and interviews, with questions added, as new themes emerged from the previous focus groups. New themes that seemed interesting, or that I had not yet thought of, or had relevance to the general themes that I wanted to inquire into further, were redefined in my interview guide. This process of developing the interview guidelines throughout the interviewing process was key to understanding

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and responding to the complex themes that were emerging from each progressive interview. Both broad and specific questions had acculmulated, producing an extensive guide, which helped to hone in on themes that participants saw as important. Both high-level and specific guidelines are provided in the appendices section of this thesis.

Whānau-driven talk

Kennedy and Cram (2010) discuss a set of principles that have been worked through by Māori community members as being important to them. The guidelines invoke notions of respect, humility, confidentiality, trust, honesty, tikanga Māori, whakapapa and accountability. These guidelines derive from whānau and therefore can provide an approach to how a researcher engages with Māori communities. Through the case study interviews I was required to engage with these communities both at an organisation and grass roots level, both of which I navigated appropriately using my understandings of tikanga. Being lead by members of the community served me best in my case study interviews and ultimately served my research better that I had initially thought.

During a case study interview with some of the iwi members of Ngaruahine Rangi iwi, I was faced with some methodological challenges, which at the time, were of some concern. This particular case study interview took place following a Treaty land claim meeting for the iwi. Many members of Ngaruahine Rangi were present and so this was therefore a prime opportunity for me to hold an interview with iwi members. Permission was sought from the board members to conduct the interview and a number of iwi members were asked to be involved with the interview.

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At the conclusion of the land claim meeting, I was asked to speak about my research and I invited whānau to join me at the back of the wharekai71

to conduct the interview. The scene where the interview took place was just outside the entrance to the kitchen. There was much disruption in terms of dishes being washed, pots clanking and hysterical laughs of the aunties and kuia72 in the kitchen. However, these are the common sounds you hear when you‟re in the kitchen at a marae, these „disruptions‟ are merely everyday life occurrences in marae lifestyle, and therefore it was highly appropriate to have such background noise in the interview, ensuring that those who participated in the interview felt right at home.

During the interview, one of the participants was called away to tend to an issue that arose in the kitchen. Another participant had to exit the interview to attend another meeting that was being held at the marae that same day. These two members shared their perspectives and then departed but were quickly replaced by two others who wanted to be involved. After a short while, another participant had to excuse himself as he was needed elsewhere and was replaced by yet another one of the whānau who was interested in what it was we were discussing.

The conversation was constantly evolving and grew from one participant to another. They each had their own views on the kaupapa but were able to seamlessly continue the discussions without any real interruption. After 55 or so minutes of what was termed as a „musical chairs interview‟, everyone was content with being able to give his or her whakaaro on the kaupapa. This flexible approach to data collection was unplanned and frankly, was concerning me somewhat in relation to how I would

71 _{wharekai – dining hall} 72

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rationalise this approach, which happened rather organically and rather quickly! Reviewing the data later I realised that the stories and perspectives seemed to build upon each other. The concerns that were shared at the beginning about SNS and how the technology threatens the way that our culture is being practised and echoed throughout the group, despite three members of the group having joined in the discussions half way through the interview.

The conversation flowed from speaker to speaker, evolving and building as the interview progressed. This process was indeed in rhythm with the ebbs and flows of marae lifestyle, of people coming and going, scurrying away to complete tasks, to fulfill responsibilities and coming back again into the fold of sociality within the whānau, hapū and iwi. In reflection, this way of conducting the interview was a natural progression, not forced or scripted and it enabled the talk to flow and connect.

The second case study interviews were conducted with Ngāti Rānana over Skype. I held two separate interviews with whānau who were available at different times. I was initially reluctant to conduct the interview over Skype, but acknowledged that our respective locations would make it difficult, not to mention expensive, to conduct face-to-face interviews. The sessions went well and I was able to record both the audio between myself and the participants as well as capturing the screen monitor of the video call. The flow of talk was fairly seamless and was interrupted only when the software for screen capture crashed, but this was quickly resolved and the interview carried on.

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The interviews began with mihimihi from myself and the participants, and each interview lasted between 45 – 60 minutes. I was not able to observe body language (as the screen was centred on the participants‟ faces), which made it difficult to pick up such cues but the discussions and issues covered were uncomplicated as participants were open and took the conversation in different tangents and places. Obviously, the sharing of food was not possible, though whanaungatanga was strongly established at the beginning of the interviews with mihimihi and informal discussions that occurred throughout the interview. Koha was also not exchanged with the Ngāti Rānana participants. This is something that I will be addressing in a forthcoming trip overseas, as I will be spending some time in London. There I hope to meet with the people of Ngāti Rānana and share some food, a presentation of my research and hope to gift these participants with something in acknowledgement of their time and thoughts they shared and contributed to this research.

Sharing of food

During the face-to-face interviews (focus groups, individual interviews and case studies) food was provided to share with the participants. The concept of sharing food is to bring people together; some focus groups started the interview by sharing food, others waited until after the interview. There were no guidelines around this process except that participants were made to feel comfortable.

Gifting of koha

Koha was given to acknowledge people‟s time and effort in participating in the study. Each participant from focus groups and individual interviews were provided with a $20 or $30 voucher (respectively) for a bookstore, clothes store or food store for their time and participation in the study. Case study participants were gifted a

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relevant hard cover book for their organisation/community group, however survey participants did not receive any koha as respondents were anonymous.

Keeping in touch

Whanaungatanga is about maintaining connections during the research process. For all of my interviews, a thank you email was sent to each participant directly following the interview. Email communication with the participants was maintained, sending them transcripts to review and letting them know of the progress of the research project, including sending any publications arising out of the research. This flow of communication from the researcher was important in reassuring participants that their input and data were valued and properly acknowledged. As a researcher, I genuinely care about keeping in touch with these people, as it was their talk and experiences that provided the „flesh and bones‟ of my project.

Privileging the voices of the community is integral to research. Having relationships with participants is crucial to achieving mutual respect between researcher, participant and the kaupapa in which is being researched. The divide between researcher and the community arises from the long history of the 'researched' being interpreted and analysed from under a microscope of a Western worldview and way of thinking. To engage in meaningful relationships with your participants is to work towards changing that view. Following the completion of this thesis, I will continue to communicate with participants providing updates and information around future presentations (on the research) to be held in various Māori communities.

Survey participants were not contacted directly as the survey was anonymous, however, were provided with a URL website address (at the time of submitting their

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completed survey) to visit any time after January 2013 when results from the survey would be posted. The initial intention was to provide respondents of the survey the opportunity to see the survey results in January 2013, which were to be posted to our Marsden project website. In completing the article that featured survey data, it was decided to instead provide a copy of the published article that discusses survey results to the website as soon as it is published.

Analysis

The analysis of the qualitative data has primarily used thematic analysis. This method has enabled me to have flexibility around how to manipulate and interpret the data, while also providing a sound and robust tool to categorise the emerging themes. Some quantitative analysis was used for parts of the survey data.