“As a white person growing up, I never had reason to think that my worldview — my understanding of the world around me — wasn’t everyone’s worldview until I was deep into my university studies and that was like a profound thing to suddenly, understand. That not everyone understood the world in the same way as me. And that’s an enormous privilege to have access to tertiary education and to have that experience. But at the same time, what does it say about white society? That I get to be 19-20 years old before I understand that. I think that’s kind of emblematic of a broader kind of culture of not listening and kind of not having a willingness to hear about experiences that are different to our own.”
– Dr. Amanda Thomas, School of Geography, Environment and Earth Sciences, Victoria University of Wellington
There has been a history of exploitation of Indigenous communities internationally and that can make a lot of interactions feel transactional rather than genuine. Students sometimes enter IQP projects under the assumption that they are there to help a community, however, students must acknowledge that the community member they are contacting is also helping them by sharing their knowledge, and giving their time to the students.
Students can respect this by using their time with community members to truly listen to what they have to say, and respect how comfortable they may be sharing their knowledge, and with what format they decide to share it.
In many Indigenous cultures, storytelling is a key component in sharing information. In STEM fields, there are usually direct and conclusive answers to questions, whereas in this type of work students need to be open to listening to stories rather than getting direct answers. From those stories, they can gather data for their projects.
Information can be shared in different ways
“I want to know how you fired the pot. How did you get the black color?” And Kimberly, the Tewa potter, would give you one more opportunity to listen. She might say, “How I fired the pot is something we can discuss later. But first please let me tell you about Grandmother Clay. Because now we gather Grandmother Clay . The Clay that my daughter will use. It is this multi-generational thinking, sustainable thinking, that is important. We cherish The Mother and the actual Clay gathered by my Mom and all the prayers and all the history.” If you went on to say, “We don’t care about that Kimberly, we just want to know how you carved the turtle, why you carved a turtle, what tools do you use, it is fired like the other pots?” See what I mean? And so you can write a paper on how the Tewa make a turtle from clay. But, if you choose to ask an open ended question and just listen to the Tewa potter … then a new world opens to you. That simple act of respect indicates that you are willing to be in a relationship and you are willing to learn. If you don’t listen. If instead you choose to go only where you wish, then someone like Kimberly may stop talking. No IQP Team may ever be welcomed back. etc.”
– Dr. Thomas Balistrieri, Department of Interdisciplinary and Global Studies, Social Sciences – Psychology, Worcester Polytechnic Institute; New Mexico IQP Advisor
WHAT DOES NOT LISTENING LOOK LIKE?
Not listening to the needs and concerns of communities can directly lead to harmful results. An idea that is put into action may be harmful, even if it has good intentions if communities are not listened to. The following interviewees shared how this problem was evident in Aotearoa’s vaccine rollout.
Harms of Not Listening on Vaccine Rollouts
“It’s been pretty much normal life in lots of ways for those of us that have the privilege of living in a particular way. Māori communities are saying “I’m giving all this advice about the pandemic response” and I think it was in November or December 50% of covid cases were Māori, and Māori are 16% of the population. A very high proportion of people who have died are Māori – it’s Māori and Pasifika communities that have been most affected. And so, the pandemic response was an example of not listening, despite there being very loud voices saying “Can you just listen to us? Why did you not roll out the vaccination program to Māori first, because we know for all these factors Māori are at risk” And why are you not starting in these remote, largely Māori communities with the vaccination? So yeah I think the idea of listening is a really important one and that’s partly about being a bit more humble in our Pākehā culture and being open to the idea that we don’t know.”
–Dr. Amanda Thomas, School of Geography, Environment and Earth Sciences, Victoria University of Wellington
“in the New Zealand situation when they did a staging of introducing vaccines for people, they did it based on age so, in the first stage, it was 60 and over. So who were the targets of vaccination, so the entire population, but for the Māori population, who have a life expectancy lower than the rest of the population that sort of in a sense exacerbates inequality because you’re getting fewer Māori getting it, and with your Māori population as a younger population they got access to vaccines much later. So that sort of so covid itself in a sense has exacerbated healthcare inequalities but also help us see how that decision making plays out when. When it’s based on population thinking, rather than thinking of different populations and the different configurations.”
–Professor Kevin Dew, School of Social and Cultural Studies, Victoria University of Wellington
The COVID response has hurt trust between Māori and non- Māori communities. While there are also positive changes in New Zealand towards repairing trust, such as a Māori health agency, the history of being taken advantage of and not being listened to has an effect on how Māori community members may view research projects with non- Māori partners. Students need to understand this history and make active efforts to listen to the needs of Māori participants to ensure their projects aren’t damaging Māori communities.