Culture its role in determining human behaviour, beliefs and enterprise
All human behaviours, thoughts, beliefs and activities are bound by the parameters and dictates of culture. This might, at first, be hard to accept, particularly since most Westerners think of culture as synonymous with the arts - music, literature, architecture and style, or else something possessed by minority groups and exotic peoples. If culture is mentioned in the New Zealand media, it is usually in connection with Māori concerns and beliefs, or those of Pacific Island or Asian peoples.
However, culture shapes all human endeavour and marks one of the main differences between homosapiens and other animals with whom we share our world. When anthropologists and archaeologists have searched for the ancestors of humankind, evidence of ritual has determined the difference between an animal and a hominid or human ancestor.
Primitive birth and death, and hunting and gathering rituals of past millennia have given way to sophisticated social structures which are the foundations of great cities and nations, as well as work and relationship practices, and what individuals identify as important in their world.
This sense of the term culture is, therefore, defined as the shared system of beliefs, social organisation and ritual that are the basis of the various populations and groups making up human society.
Cultural differences are myriad and not always consonant with racial or ethnic differences - consider, for instance, the differences in culture and beliefs between the racially similar Hindu and Islamic peoples of India, who despite these co-exist in the same environment.
Here in the Pacific, there are also many examples of cultural similarities co-existing alongside major cultural differences between any two groups. Māori and Pakeha share the modern values of ‘do-it-yourself Kiwi initiative,’ and ‘getting away to the beach for the weekend.’ But there are also huge differences between them, as in Tangihanga and funeral rituals. Many Māori, reflecting on a Pakeha funeral, will point to there being insufficient time for grief, and for support of the dead person’s Whanau; while many Pakeha feel uncomfortable with the outpouring of emotion and intimacy, and the days rather than hours spent at the deceased’s side.
Nations like New Zealand that are dominated by the beliefs of Western culture, see science as one of the greatest European legacies. In fact, rather than having created science in the last few thousand years, European nations have brought together, refined and built on ideas devised by many other cultural groups as well as their own.
Modern science contains ideas and philosophies from early Indian, Persian, Greek, Egyptian and Chinese civilisations, amongst others, as well as the esoteric, spiritual and pragmatic sciences and philosophies of their hunter-gatherer and agricultural ancestors.
As with all ideas and ways of making sense of the world around us, science is culturally bound and constructed. In Western history, Saint Augustine developed the philosophy separating the secular from the religious world, resulting in God and spirituality being removed from the scientific and philosophical equation. Several hundred years later, Descartes observed, “I think, therefore I am.” From these and other great thinkers grew the dualistic philosophy supporting much of the science practised throughout the world today (Russel, 1946).
Today’s scientist-practitioner pursues ‘the truth’, forging ahead into areas identified by ‘testable hypotheses’, and guided by sound scientific practice. In recent years, however, and particularly in the human sciences, science’s ‘objectivity’ has been hotly debated.
The core of this debate is whether it is possible for any researcher to be a completely disinterested and neutral party to the phenomena they are observing or measuring. They will always have an opinion, and their own backgrounds and social milieu, pet theories and ideas, personal observations and biases are likely to encourage them to focus on some aspects more than others, and to finally interpret what they see from a particular perspective.
What concerns critics of this ‘objectivity’ is that science - usually in the form of research purported to be ‘robust’ - is often used to confirm and support the biases of those sponsoring the research. Particular questions are posed and others not; particular data are gathered while other data go unnoticed; data are analysed according to a particular focus (Habermas, 1981).
In the human sciences, these concerns have seen the rise of qualitative research (research supposedly more closely aligned with the research population). Traditional, statistical and number crunching quantitative research has been put in a qualitative context (Creswell, 1994).
When using formal scientific processes to study other cultural groups, researchers often focus on and measure their own perspective of the studied group’s situation.
The results with Māori in New Zealand have been less than successful. For around the last hundred years, there have been innumerable studies on Māori, looking for measurements of and insights into various phenomena, situations and causal factors. There is also an ongoing application of overseas research results, consulting the latest findings and extrapolating these to Māori.
What is the result of well-meaning but possibly misplaced ‘science’? It does not appear to have increased Māori success. Māori feature disproportionately in all negative social statistics, most of which have risen again over the last ten years (Statistics New Zealand, 1998).
Is Science’s lack of success with Māori attributable to the tools of science, or the perspectives of those operating them? Logic suggests it is not science at fault, but rather the culturally-bound perspectives of those applying it.
If this is so, research findings were applied out of cultural context; insufficient data were gathered and then incorrectly interpreted; research findings, even if useful, were erroneously applied by ignoring Māori cultural processes.
Science and culture - a summary
The belief systems of modern Māori are formed by their immediate familial and social milieu, their schooling, and their exposure to the mass media. A significant minority will undergo a strong education and training in traditional Māori lore or Tikanga that remains steadfast in the face of the messages and philosophies of main-stream Western society.
For most Māori however the Western orientation they experience as an ongoing feature of their lives will have a major impact upon their understanding of themselves as Māori.
If considering the perspectives of the former ‘group’, their opinions and views will be guided by the dictates and precepts of traditional beliefs, whilst the latter ‘group’ will have many Māori whose knowledge of Tikanga may be cursory and barely formed.
When the ‘Māori perspective’ is examined in this context it becomes clear that Tikanga Māori and the Māori perspective overlap but are not synonymous. The Māori perspective may be more or less informed by Tikanga and Western influences depending on the background and experiences of the informant.
Tikanga Māori, or Māori customary beliefs, provided traditional Māori with a way of seeing the world, organising social relationships, assessing problems and generating decisions.
As a result of the colonisation process, most modern Māori have only partial access to Tikanga Māori. Ancient systems of transmitting knowledge have been almost completely eroded, and community-driven lore replaced by state-driven law.
Although over the previous hundred or so years, Māori have generally embraced mainstream culture as a way of improving their lifestyle and providing for their children, the last twenty-five years have seen a turnaround. Māori have begun to realise they are not accessing the fruits of society to the same extent as their Pakeha counterparts.
The sight of Māori people filling unemployment lines, mental institutions and prisons gave momentum for the so-called Māori renaissance, a movement whose beginnings were marked by the Māori land march of 1975.
Today’s Māori are reviving the teachings and philosophies of their ancestors as a way of regaining the dignity and sense of well-being they feel is not accorded them by mainstream society and its institutions.
In Māori belief systems, the ‘Mana paradigm’ explains Māori existence as a trilogy of the Gods or Atua, the people and the land (Reedy, 1998). It connects the individual to metaphysical and physical environments through a continuous relationship in which there is no division between the physical and metaphysical. The essence of the paradigm is recognition of the Mana of the individual, the Mana of the Atua and the Mana of the land.
Mana is seen as the enduring, indestructible power of the Atua, as a sacred fire without beginning or end.
"Ma te whahine ma te whenua, E ngaro ai te tangata"
"Without, or for, woman and land, men or people are lost, or die."
The link between people and land has, since 1865, been expressed through the Marae, on customary land with a dedicated ancestral meeting house and facilities for Whanau, Hapu and Iwi to gather for Tangihanga and Hui, and to share the teachings of the ancestors, or Matauranga.
According to Tikanga, sharing knowledge and beliefs took place formally through Wananga, or ancient houses of learning. Transmission of knowledge through Te Reo, the language, and Nga Tikanga, customs, was the key purpose of Wananga.
Initiates not selected to receive esoteric knowledge of Māori customary lore through Wananga, received customary folklore or informal learning from elders, or Pakeke, or Kaumatua. The learning and practice of beliefs and customs gave everyone a place to stand, or Turangawaewae. A person’s Turangawaewae derives from their Whakapapa.
Although there are differences in the way Māori lore experts represent Tikanga Māori, they usually centre on the core themes of Mana, Whenua, Turangawaewae, Whakapapa, Whanaungatanga, Wairua (spirituality) and Atua.
As far as their relevance in the modern world is concerned, these processes amount to a powerful system for determining social organisation and beliefs, and from it, criteria for ethical behaviour and pro-social decision-making.
It is these qualities which have inspired Māori leaders such as Sir Apirana Ngata and Dame Whina Cooper to exhort young people to learn Tikanga Māori: to give them a context in which to live successfully, allowing them to honour their ancestors while respecting their neighbours.
In this way, Tikanga Māori is not about going back to the past but recognises that for many Māori, ‘Tikanga Pakeha’ has so far been unable to give them a secure framework within which to see themselves and the world around them positively (Marsden, 1992).
Tikanga Māori provides Māori with this reassuring framework, giving all Māori recognition, a special place in the world, inherent relationships with other people and guidelines for behaviour and decision-making.
There is no reason why an individual cannot, from within Tikanga Māori, become a scientist or a computer programmer. Under Tikanga Māori, such people would be more likely to consider the impact of their actions on other people, since they would define their existence according to their relationships with others and the mana inherent in all peoples.
While the importance of Tikanga Māori for Māori has grown enormously, initiatives designed to benefit Māori people have typically ignored Tikanga Māori as a factor in Māori development.
As well, initiatives for Māori development have often undermined Tikanga Māori by focusing on individual achievement and status, or targeting the nuclear family unit rather than the Whanau or extended family structure.
Initiatives usually fail to affirm or facilitate the growth and maintenance of a positive Māori identity, and there has been little investigation of Tikanga Māori as a pro-social framework within which to anchor Māori initiatives.
For the purposes of FReMO, Mana, Te Reo, Tikanga, Whanaungatanga, and Turangawaewae have been identified as foundation constructs which any initiative or project relevant to Māori should aim to enhance, rather than inadvertently depreciate or diminish through exclusion.
Together these constructs reach into all of the values and cultural institutions that Māori seek to maintain and uphold for life in the modern world (Reedy, et al 1999). Definitions of these primary constructs has been kept brief within this document so as to enable the Māori experts who are integral to any delivery of FReMO to apply definitions that suit their own Hapu and Iwi perspectives. Experience gained by the designers of FReMO suggests that Tikanga experts prefer to apply their own perspectives rather than working to those developed by others. (See definitions pages 24-25.)
Tikanga Māori is the system of customary beliefs defining Māori relationships with the Atua, those around them, and the land.
There has been a revival of Tikanga Māori as a way of helping Māori make a positive connection with today’s world.
Initiatives purporting to benefit Māori should ensure not only that they do not undermine Tikanga Māori, but that Māori participation in the initiative will also enhance access to Tikanga Māori.
Tikanga Māori is not the same as the ‘Māori perspective’, although inevitably they overlap.
Tikanga Māori refers to a specific belief and philosophical system, and a set of processes; whilst the ‘Māori perspective’ may be informed by varying degrees of Tikanga and Western influences.
All humans are cultural beings whose belief systems and ways of perceiving the world are a function of culture. Scientific tools are influenced by the perceptions of those using them. To reduce this effect when investigating issues relevant to another cultural group, primary variables must be identified or endorsed from within the group itself.
FReMO acknowledges that most initiatives that have had a focus or influence upon Māori, have not factored in the Māori perspective, the enhancement of Tikanga Māori, or a critical analysis of mainstream literature as being crucial to successful outcomes. Rather than assuming workers in the area will automatically consider these areas, FReMO provides a step by step process that highlights each of these key areas.