Towards a Pacific-Indigenous research paradigm for Pacific social work

Abstract

This chapter provides a Pacific-Indigenous research paradigm to benefit Pacific health and social service users and communities. It discusses the context of Pacific research and considers decolonisation, diversity and the need for Pacific-led developmental research. The chapter deals with a story about social work practice research in Fiji and how decolonisation and positionality was navigated. Pacific social work research claims Pacific-Indigenous space in both research and social work traditions, whilst acknowledging that legitimacy stems from Pacific-Indigenous knowledge systems and cosmologies outside of “enlightenment” and the industrial revolution. Pacific-Indigenous research approaches add to a global movement of Indigenous scholarships advocating for the decolonisation of research and the articulation of Indigenous research paradigms. Pacific communities are manifestations of their genealogical lineages spanning vast oceans, and as collective economic powerhouses resulting from political presence on the world stage and nascent forms of indigenous innovation and entrepreneurship.