Their worldview and ours: an exploratory study into Pacific peoples as seen in New Zealand government policies, 1998-2013

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aut.embargoNoen_NZ
aut.thirdpc.containsNoen_NZ
aut.thirdpc.permissionNoen_NZ
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dc.contributor.advisorFairbairn-Dunlop, Tagaloatele Peggy
dc.contributor.advisorWaring, Marilyn
dc.contributor.authorKatavake-McGrath, Filipo Semisi Patita
dc.date.accessioned2015-10-22T21:29:19Z
dc.date.available2015-10-22T21:29:19Z
dc.date.copyright2015
dc.date.created2015
dc.date.issued2015
dc.date.updated2015-10-22T18:47:27Z
dc.description.abstractThis thesis is an exploratory study of the experiences of policy makers and expert policy advisors of Pacific ethnicity on the attitudes and environmental conditions that contribute to the framing of Pacific peoples’ economic wellbeing in government policies. Statistics and government reports indicate that low incomes have an adverse impact on Pacific peoples’ ability to realise economic wellbeing. Such reports imply that economic wellbeing is a construct which relies on individual households having adequate income, earned by the head/s of the household, to spend on consumable goods that help the members of the household to maximise their enjoyment. As a Tongan, raised in a family environment that was heavily influenced by the anga fakatonga (the Tongan culture), I have experienced first-hand concepts of economic wellbeing from a Tongan household perspective, which were inclined towards the sharing of money and resources across multiple households out of obligation to our wider family across the world, and also our community of Ma’ufanga in Tonga. For this study, I wanted to explore the prevalence of mainstream westernised economic logic in government policy making, and its impact on the Pacific peoples who both helped construct and lived by these policies. The methodological framework of phenomenology and talanoa was employed in this study, involving individual talanoa or key informant interviews with four participants who either held roles as policy making Minsters of the Crown, or as expert policy advisors in government departments in New Zealand between the years of 1998 and 2013. The talanoa were conducted in English and recorded. Findings were that not only was mainstream economic logic prevalent, but that the entire policy-making system represented the normative values of the New Zealand European/Palangi population. Government documents revealed, through extensive use of statistics to justify the positions of mainstream policy makers and their departments, that Pacific peoples’ economic wellbeing was typified by material hardship and difficulty in accessing adequate capital for ideal consumption. Participants revealed that despite their viewpoints clarifying the nature of resource accumulation and distribution among Pacific families, the mainstream agencies’ economic viewpoint endured, as well as the assumptions about ideal economic behaviour that were contained within. All four participants affirmed the efforts they, and many of their Pacific colleagues, had gone to, in order to affect attitudinal change inside government policy systems, and the challenges entailed in doing so. As this study only addresses a pan-Pacific and economic environment, further research is warranted.en_NZ
dc.identifier.urihttps://hdl.handle.net/10292/9135
dc.language.isoenen_NZ
dc.publisherAuckland University of Technology
dc.rights.accessrightsOpenAccess
dc.subjectPacificen_NZ
dc.subjectPasifikaen_NZ
dc.subjectPolicyen_NZ
dc.subjectEconomic developmenten_NZ
dc.subjectNeo-liberal policyen_NZ
dc.subjectNew Zealanden_NZ
dc.subjectDeficit modelen_NZ
dc.subjectPacific vision conferenceen_NZ
dc.subjectPolicy cycleen_NZ
dc.subjectNew public managementen_NZ
dc.subjectNPMen_NZ
dc.subjectPublic finance acten_NZ
dc.subjectPublic choice theoryen_NZ
dc.subjectAgency theoryen_NZ
dc.subjectTransaction cost economicsen_NZ
dc.subjectPublic sector reformsen_NZ
dc.subjectFamilyen_NZ
dc.subjectHouseholden_NZ
dc.subjectResource allocationen_NZ
dc.subjectObligationen_NZ
dc.subjectTalanoaen_NZ
dc.subjectPhenomenologyen_NZ
dc.titleTheir worldview and ours: an exploratory study into Pacific peoples as seen in New Zealand government policies, 1998-2013en_NZ
dc.typeThesis
thesis.degree.discipline
thesis.degree.grantorAuckland University of Technology
thesis.degree.grantorAuckland University of Technology
thesis.degree.levelMasters Theses
thesis.degree.nameMaster of Philosophyen_NZ
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