SPEaR Good Practice Guidelines 2008: Research and Evaluation involing Pacific People
The Conceptual Framework (and supporting framework diagram) provides contextual information of relevance to this section. Officials contemplating research or evaluation - whether in-house or through contracting should consider carefully where the proposed work locates in the Framework.
The more aligned the proposed work is with the partnership approach the greater the need for attention to guidance in this section. More generalised survey work will also benefit from the guidance in this section. While the term 'Pacific Peoples' is used in these SPEaR Guidelines, the term 'Pacific Peoples' is a collective 'grouping term'. The collective is composed of unique, distinctive and diverse cultural groups of indigenous peoples including New Zealanders by birth (Tokelau, Niue, Cook Islands). There is a fast growing population of Pacific children growing up in New Zealand (14% increase since 2002).
The Health Research Council of New Zealand published Guidelines on Pacific Health Research in May 2005. Several people involved with the development of those Guidelines have also been involved in the consultations and development of the SPEaR Guidelines. The HRC document should be consulted along with the shorter SPEaR guidelines.
The HRC Guidelines are for Pacific Research, with a vision of Pacific Research by Pacific for Pacific. The SPEaR Guidelines are for Research and Evaluation involving Pacific Peoples - which government agencies are doing now - either in-house or through contractors - providing guidance to encourage officials to more their practice more closely towards Partnership (as in the Conceptual Framework) and Pacific Research as outlined in the HRC Guidelines.
UNESCO issued a draft statement on Bioethics in 2005 and has sponsored a series of country/regional meetings since then. At the NZ meeting in Dunedin, February 2006, UNESCO were asked to hold a Pacific Regional meeting to enable exploration of what appeared to be major paradigm differences.
The Regional Pacific Ethics Of Knowledge Production Workshop November 2007 fono provides a further source of information of relevance. As with other parts of the Guidelines, a living document approach means that there is scope for further refinement, editing, illustrations and extension with additional work on this involving Pacific Peoples section being a priority.
