This week we hit the mark of 500 great resources in the Resource Library. Over the next few days we’re going to be sharing nominations of people’s nomination of favourite resources? Got your own favourite? Drop us a line to gary.allen@ahrecs.com with your suggestion.
Professor Mark Israel
Hudson M, Milne M, Reynolds P, Russell K and Smith B (2010) Te Ara Tika. Guidelines for Māori research ethics: A framework for researchers and ethics committee members. Final Draft. Available at: http://www.hrc.govt.nz/sites/default/files/Te%20Ara%20Tika%20Guidelines%20for%20Maori%20Research%20Ethics.pdf
AHRECS Resource Library entry
In 2010, Māori members of research ethics committees drafted Te Ara Tika, guidelines for Māori research ethics, for the Health Research Council of New Zealand (Hudson et al., 2010). Māori committee members are charged with responsibility both for acting as ethical reviewers and for acting as guardians and advocates (kaitiaki) for Māori ethical concerns, ethical issues, and interests.
Te Ara Tika calls for tikanga Māori (locally specific Māori protocols and practices) to encourage research that sustains relationships and preserves justice and equity. The authors argued this would be best (but not uniquely) achieved by research that is informed by kaupapa Māori which seeks ‘to restructure power relationships to the point where partners can be autonomous and interact from this position rather than from one of subordination or dominance’ (Bishop, 2008, p. 440). In Te Ara Tika, this is envisaged as research where Māori are significant participants, the research team is typically all Māori, Māori research methodologies are adopted where appropriate, and which produces Māori knowledge. Importantly, Te Ara Tika also considers how research that is not Māori-led might still be informed by ideas of respectful conduct, achieve tangible outcomes for Māori communities, and enable Māori communities to assume power in the research relationship and responsibility for the outcomes of a project.
While drafted with the needs of health and disability research ethics in mind, the framework could be relevant to all research in New Zealand. Sadly, Te Ara Tika has had limited impact there. The document has no formal standing with ethics committees or the Ministry of Health. One of the authors of Te Ara Tika recently described how the document has been marginalized by the HRC in NZ (Tolich and Smith, 2015), and how Māori interests have been reduced to a matter of culture by HDECs (the ‘cultural turn’).
Nevertheless, Te Ara Tika deserves to be taken seriously. It draws on and responds to indigenous values and interests in a way that is quite different from Values and Ethics or GERAIS in Australia and TCPS2 in Canada. Kaupapa Māori offers a well-articulated challenge to the universalist assumptions of much research ethics. It is elegantly constructed and written in a way that helps international and Pākehā readers engage with its ideas and concepts.
Bishop R (2008) Te Kotahitanga: Kaupapa Māori in Mainstream Classrooms. In: Denzin NK, Lincoln YS and Smith LT (eds) Handbook of Critical and Indigenous Methodologies. Los Angeles: Sage, pp. 439-458.
Hudson M, Milne M, Reynolds P, Russell K and Smith B (2010) Te Ara Tika. Guidelines for Māori research ethics: A framework for researchers and ethics committee members. Final Draft. Available at: http://www.hrc.govt.nz/sites/default/files/Te%20Ara%20Tika%20Guidelines%20for%20Maori%20Research%20Ethics.pdf
Tolich, M and Smith, B (2015) The Politicisation of Ethics Review in New Zealand. Auckland: Dunmore.
