Where I come from

Conceptions about one’s identity are of shifting nature because how people experience themselves relates to ‘being in time’: to one’s past, present, and future (Heidegger, 1962). Sense of identity relates to the space where and at what point in history people experience their ‘being in the world’. Consequently, in their identity journeys, the women in this study moved between their past-being during their upbringing in Samoa (historicity), their present-being in Auckland, and what they hoped to be in the future (temporality).

The participants had in common their contingent time and place of ‘beginning to be’ - the place they were ‘thrown into’ at birth, which introduced to each of them an identity. Samoa was the place, during the time of their upbringing, they shared with others: the pre-given world whose concepts of truth and reality they shared, and which they took more or less for granted back then. The ‘taken for granted’, the handed down, shared understanding, is how people first understand their being

(Dasein) (Heidegger, 1962). Within people’s shared lifeworld, the vague ‘everyone’

(man) understands cultural principles and practices in a specific, shared way. Matters

talked about are thought to be already understood and their reality taken for granted. Initially, this understanding constitutes the basis for ‘how to be-in-the-world. Within a

normative Dasein in shared time and space, the participants learned ‘what one does’.

However, as the participants had taken up work in a country new to them - and as their lifeworlds were exposed to the changing conditions of time and space - their understandings of ‘what one does’ were prone to changing as well. Similar to other Samoan women in New Zealand who substituted some of their traditional ways - despite those being strong and pervasive (Fairbairn-Dunlop & Makisi, 2003; Koloto - 2003), the participants changed some of their views about themselves and their lives. The changes in their self-views became transparent as the participants moved back and forth in their stories between the place and time where they grew up into young Samoan women and their way of being in present time.

At home, fa’asamoa ruled - safety and restrictions came as one

The ‘home’ as the place of birth is the starting point for every one’s life journey (Schutz, 1971). It is from the home that we begin our journey into the world beyond the immediate space that we live in. The home, while it might be experienced as safe

and familiar, also constitutes a boundary - a constraint - of one’s space. Yet,

‘boundary’ contains also the possibility of ‘liberation’ as it is also that from which something begins its ‘essential unfolding’ (Heidegger, 1962). For the women in this study, ‘home’ was Samoa; this was the place where their ‘being in the world’ had its origin and from where their ‘unfolding’ of the self began. The origins of their being were intimately tied up into the women’s present sense of self, shown in S.’s reflections on her upbringing:

‘At home, fa‟asamoa ruled. It really meant two sides of the same coin - freedom and restrictions came as one. While on one side, our strict principles and rules in fa‟asamoa gave me a sense of orientation - sometimes, they are still a safety anchor when I don‟t know what to do - on the other side, fa‟asamoa did not allow for much leeway when you wanted to have things your own way. Whether you want it or not, even if you move on, these things stay with you. It becomes part of you‟.

During their upbringing, the participants had learned to comply with the norms

and values of fa‟asamoa as these were relevant to their environment, and as these

‘made sense for the purpose at hand’ (Heidegger, 1962). In other words, compliance had its values as an existential tool in Samoan culture as they grew up. (However, as

it became apparent in the previous chapters, some of the learned principles, like being enduring, conscientious, and perseverant also prepared them for later challenges elsewhere, such as at work in New Zealand). As the participants elaborated on specific norms and expectations that applied to work, it became evident how these had shaped their current ideas about work attitudes, but also how these had changed over time.

If you do a job, you do it right

Samoan culture had been ‘given’ to the participants at birth. Heidegger introduced the notion of ‘thrownness into culture’, which emphasizes an

unchangeable, irreversible aspect of one’s existence, Dasein (Heidegger, 1927).

‘Thrownness’ presented the participants with the ‘then’ and ‘there’: the socio- historical time and space with its practices, principles, and viewpoints, which laid the foundation for their present being, and which became apparent when they reflected on their work ethics. The participants tended to talk positively even about those jobs,

which they found ‘challenging‟, ‘boring‟, and ‘not meeting my aspirations‟ (explicated

in more detail later under 4: The meaning of work). They explained their overall

positive work attitudes with the teachings of fa‟asamoa. Back in Samoa, the teaching,

‘If you do a job you do it right - no matter if you like it or not’ prepared them to cope

with often unfavorable work situations later in Auckland. Many, like L., recalled that high work standards were instilled in early childhood:

„Work started for me when I was a little child - as early as I could walk. Life in Samoa is work at all hours … even at young age, it did not matter what you did or whether you liked it - you had to do a perfect job. You had to work hard. It‟s a cultural thing; we were not given choices. They told you “if you do a job you do it right”. Not doing it wasn‟t an option for me‟.

The participants emphasized that they would not enforce such work ethics on

their own children. Many of them disagreed with ‘the harsh and unfair‟ work

expectations in fa‟asamoa and suggested that ‘in current times, you do things

differently‟. However, they acknowledged that ‘back then‟, those ‘teachings about work‟ in some ways matched the context of their lifeworlds. Many of them were

raised under circumstances where financial resources were restricted and ‘it was

essential to work hard to make ends meet’. Early experiences about ‘having to work hard for things‟ had implications for the participants’ future as well; these experiences prepared them for their later life in Auckland where, initially, resources were also less than abundant. F.’s reflections, for example, illustrated the far-reaching teachings

„I can see now that the tough teachings and chores back home were teaching us to value things in life. Things didn‟t come easy for us. I didn‟t take things for granted. And I still don‟t feel entitled to things … My life in Samoa was simple, my parents not rich. I didn‟t have all these things [like here in New Zealand]. I was dreaming about them and that makes it [the things I have now] so precious. It [the teachings] made me not expect things to come to me but to work for them‟.

Even though the expectations of putting in hard work were exasperating the

young Samoan girls and they often would have ‘…preferred to play rather than

running errands and serving those who were older and ranking higher…’, they

generally, with occasional exceptions, ‘followed orders‟. In their shared environment

with others, shared practices were existential to their Dasein. Non-compliance would

have meant ‘you would be smacked’, and ‘others give you a hard time‟. Hence, the

participants responded to the demands of their world by settling for ‘common practice’, by ‘what one does in shared time and space’ (Heidegger, 1927; 1985). From a transactional perspective, agreeing upon public principles, practices, and common understandings made it possible for the participants to live in a shared world that provided feelings of belonging and safety.

The sharing of understandings and conformity to principles and norms also provided them with ‘meaning of being and doing’. The shared meanings, however, bore a level of ambiguity. In their reflections on past and present, it was impossible for the participants to determine how much of what appeared meaningful to them

was ‘handed down’ as opposed to ‘arrived at’. The point in time and space which

evoked their awareness that their way of being may not have been based on deep

personal conviction but on ‘Gerede‟, (‘word of mouth’, ‘what they say’) (Dilthey,

1900) was after leaving home, when they experienced variations in standards of

conduct. The strict work ethics and codes of demeanor for ‘good daughters‟ (also

discussed in the first analysis chapter), and expectations to be ‘role models for the

whole family if not village’, did not apply for young Auckland women. Here, the

participants experienced that women and men were, more or less, on ‘equal footing‟

in regard to making choices and decisions about their own life.