THE VALUE OF ORAL HISTORY IN A KAUPAPA MĀORI
FRAMEWORK
Te Rangimarie Mahuika
University of Waikato
The affirmation of oral history as its own distinct field of inquiry is
now widely accepted in international scholarship, yet it remains a
clouded and unresolved area of study on our own shores. In
Aotearoa, oral history has a number of interpretive meanings, and in
Māori and iwi histories it is often used in an interchangeable way
with oral tradition to describe the types of histories we research and
produce. 1 The centrality of oral sources in the transmission and
construction of Māori and iwi histories means that when we talk
about oral history we tend to be thinking in these terms of reference,
yet oral history is much more than this. For many, oral history has
often been associated with interviews, or with oral recordings of a
varied nature that capture a speaker, sometimes a ceremony, or oral
performance. For some time oral history, even on the international
scene, was viewed simply as a methodology. However, as Anna
Green contends, oral history in the last decade has grown rapidly as
a field of study in its own right, with oral historians developing ‘a
number of interpretive theories about memory and subjectivity, and
the narrative structures which provide the framework for oral stories
about the past.’2 This paper briefly examines the growing field of
oral history and its potential to enable and support our own
aspirations and needs in relation to a Kaupapa Māori frame of
reference. It highlights the need to understand more deeply the
theoretical and methodological developments in oral history, so that
we can apply these in our own ways, and move beyond limited
perceptions of what oral history is, or might be, in our contexts.3
Why Kaupapa Māori and Oral History?
The original topic for this paper grew out of concerns relating to the
theoretical and methodological foundations of a specific research
project within my own iwi of Ngāti Rangiwewehi. There had, at the
time, been some discussion about the development of a long-term
language and tikanga revitalization plan. Within this plan the use of
wānanga was mooted, and a curriculum for these wānanga was
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raised and considered by the iwi. The discussion was interesting,
and the potential implications for our people were equally exciting.
Caught up in the wairua (spirit) of the moment I heard myself
volunteer my services and my Masters thesis as a way to carry out
the research necessary to critically examine many of the issues that
we would need to deal with in the construction of a curriculum.
However, the project was seen as an opportunity to do more than
simply discuss the issues involved with creating an iwi-based
curriculum. With someone willing to do the work, from the
beginning, the iwi, or at least those present at the hui, saw this as a
chance to record some of our kaumātua and kuia, to gather their life
stories and experiences for future generations, and to keep as taonga
the specific kōrero (stories, narratives) and ways in which they had
retained their knowledge and attempted to pass on their
understandings.
Because the emphasis on recording these stories was based on
our iwi aspirations, a combined Kaupapa Māori and oral history
approach seemed the most appropriate. However, as the interviews
progressed, interested observers and participants began to ask
questions concerning the theoretical frameworks and methodologies
of the project. I was asked, ‘Is it oral history because you’re doing
interviews or because you’re looking at Māori history and
traditions?’ Another queried, ‘Isn’t oral history just doing
interviews?’ Although I knew the answers were no, I still struggled
to explain how oral history was more than just interviews. This was
made more difficult by the fact that the distinction between the
method and theory is not easy to locate within the literature,
particularly in regard to Indigenous and Māori research
methodologies. Indeed, in much of the literature, both the oral
history and indigenous research studies, there is a distinctive point
of difference between the underlying conceptualisations of what oral
histories are, and what their attendant methodologies should be.4
These discrepancies at times make it difficult to see what oral history
has to offer beyond interviewing.
Another interesting issue raised by some was the suggestion that
a Kaupapa Māori approach on its own would be enough, and that
the use of oral history approaches might not actually add anything
of value to the project. These contentions caused me to have some
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reservations about my selected methodological practice, and perhaps
more importantly I worried about what I was supposed to do now
that the interviews were complete. This paper began as a search for
answers to those dilemmas, and matured into an investigation of the
nature and value of oral history: what it is, and how it might be
useful to Māori researchers. During the course of this examination, it
became apparent that oral history had much more to offer than
simply procedural information for interviews, but a highly
developed literature on ethics, theories of narrative, memory, and
identity construction significant to Māori and other Indigenous
researchers.
What is Oral History?
Oral history has always been a central part of the history making
process, and all cultures have at some stage in their histories relied
on oral transmission, often in very complicated and highly effective
ways. However, with the development of a professional history
discipline in the nineteenth century, an empirical focus on
documentary sources and other written materials led to a weeding
out of oral evidence in favor of sources perceived as more viable and
reliable. This focus on empirical methods, and the premise of
empirical theories, helped to facilitate a type of ownership of the
past, which was later critiqued vigorously by scholars of the working
class, who implicated the elites as the benefactors of these types of
approaches. 5 Feminist scholars too disrupted the hegemonic
dominance of male centered political histories that failed to
recognize the voices of women in their paper trails. 6 In these
instances, oral histories, or rather oral evidence, emerged as a means
of giving voice to these subordinated historical subjects, and worked
nicely alongside post-structural ‘readings against the grain’ of
government documents. In these ways oral history became a
methodology preferable to the peripheral subjects of history, and the
development of the area included not simply the practice of
interviewing, but an explicit body of theory that illuminated ways in
which interviews might be undertaken and most importantly,
interpreted. Over time oral history has grown in popularity as it has
become more accepted as being both a valid and useful source of
evidence. This growth was perhaps also supported by technological
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advancements in the twentieth century that saw an increase in the
availability of portable tape recorders.
Despite the growing theoretical literature in oral history,
definitions of the discipline itself have often drifted toward a heavy
emphasis on methodology. Martha Ross of the American Oral
History Association defined oral history as ‘…a technique for
generating and preserving historically interesting information from
people’s personal recollections by means of tape recorded
interviews.’ 7 African American oral historian Alfredteen Brown
Harrison similarly describes it as ‘...a planned, organized method of
eliciting information from selected narrators about their personal
experiences for preservation and scholarly use.’ 8 From the New
Zealand literature, oral historian Alison Laurie adds that oral history
is ‘…a recorded interview made by agreement with an interviewee
willing to tell a particular story or series of stories about themselves
on tape, with an intention that this tape be archived under
conditions agreed to by the interviewee.’9
Laurie raises here the ethical necessity of consent and the
connection this process shares with archiving. She highlights these
features along with oral history codes of ethics as important parts of
preferred oral history practice. Clearly oral historians are not the
only ones who obtain consent, have codes of ethics and archive their
materials, yet a focus on these aspects of oral history in the literature
tend to diminish the deeper philosophies and ideas that inform its
methodology. Micheal Frisch states that oral history is ‘…a powerful
tool for discovering, exploring, and evaluating…how people make
sense of their past, how they connect individual experience and its
social context, how the past becomes a part of the present, and how
people use it to interpret their lives and the world around them.’10
More than just interviews, oral history is the way in which the
information is used and the theory informing the method that makes
oral history such a powerful tool. Jose Carlos Sebe Bom Meihy, in his
article ‘The Radicalization of Oral History’, points to the original
inspiring motives as a means for understanding the potential power
of oral history.11 This inspiration stemmed from the idea that oral
history provided an opportunity for the voices and experience of the
marginalized and neglected to share their stories and have their
voices heard. As Green and Troup note, ‘…oral history was
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perceived as a means to empower women, the working class and
ethnic minorities, allowing them to speak for themselves.’12
Despite such emancipatory potential, oral history has often been
criticized as unreliable. Paul Thompson suggests that these
challenges stem partly from the power oral history has to divert the
social purposes of history.13 Instead of representing the views of an
elite and restricted group oral history has the potential to provide
direct information from and about groups whose written history
may be missing or distorted. He writes that ‘in the most general
sense, once the life experience of people of all kinds can be used as
its raw material, a new dimension is given to history.‛14 Thompson
proposes that as oral history is a cooperative project it has led to a
reevaluation of the relationship between history and the community.
He asserts that ‘…historical information need not be taken away
from the community for interpretation and presentation by a
professional historian’, but that ‘…through oral history the
community can, and should, be given the confidence to write its own
history.’15
Indeed the idea of recording oral histories is already being taken
up by Māori community groups as a means of both retaining our
histories and understandings and providing voice for the
experiences that we have had, often not represented and reflected in
the commonly accepted narratives or accounts of the nation’s past.
Again, in these contexts, as in much of the literature the emphasis is
on the methodological aspects of oral history rather than use of the
underlying theory. It is important to note that there is nothing
inherently wrong with using oral history methodology and it is not
the intention of this paper to slight any such research projects.
However, this paper posits the idea that in developing a greater
understanding of the theory behind oral history we open the
possibilities for further development of our own theoretical
frameworks and methodological tools.
What is Kaupapa Māori Research?
Over the past decade, Kaupapa Māori theory based approaches have
grown rapidly as a preferred research methodology amongst Māori
scholars across a range of disciplines. Its popularity lies in its ability
to both acknowledge and accommodate Māori ways of knowing and
95
remain academically rigorous. 16 That is not to say that Kaupapa
Māori is a modern phenomenon. Nepe describes Kaupapa Māori as
a body of knowledge that has distinct epistemological and
metaphysical foundations, which date back to the beginning of time
and the creation of the universe.17 In this way Kaupapa Māori is
inherently intertwined in Māori language and culture, so much so
that it is suggested that it is ‘…the philosophy and practice of being
Māori.’18
The growing body of Kaupapa Māori research literature attests
to the experience of many Māori who have found not only that
Pākehā researchers have taken Māori knowledge and claimed it as
their own, presuming to set themselves up as authorities on our
culture, but also that their own experiences have not truly been
reflected by what has been written about us.19 This is an experience
common amongst Indigenous and colonized peoples, as Albert
Memmi explains, ‘The memory which is assigned him is certainly
not that of his people. The history which is taught him is not his
own… He and his lands are non-entities… or referenced to what he
is not.’ 20 Kaupapa Māori research has been a response to those
concerns and has made significant progress in ensuring greater
representation of Māori voices. Indeed, oral history theories sit well
with these objectives; particularly the recovery of those voices that
have been silenced remains a primary justification of the approach
for many oral historians. As such oral history has great potential to
assist Māori in our efforts to name the world for ourselves.21
Here the emphasis on oral history as a means to assist our own
efforts is deliberate. Kaupapa Māori has had much success in
providing an avenue for articulating our alternative ways of
knowing and being against the mainstream narrative. Oral history, if
used more for its theoretical value, can also support our aspirations,
as a vehicle to infiltrate the construction of New Zealand history by
disrupting the displays of power inherent in narratives of ‘the
nation’ that fail to convey any true representations of Māori
experiences. 22 While our knowledge has not always been selected
and included in what counts as history, oral history provides a
useful tool to highlight the silences in conventional accounts by
privileging our own understandings and experiences.
The potential for providing a distinguishing voice from those of
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the mainstream is clear. Moreover, oral history provides yet another
avenue for amplifying our own unique position, not simply as an
alternative narrative to that of the status quo, but as a means of
exposing the myth of a homogenous Māori identity. Graham Smith
has discussed the tendency to over generalize our stories. In
providing specific examples oral history can support us to ‘sort out
what is romanticized and what is real’ providing a basis from which
we can ‘engage in a genuine critique of where we really are.’23 In a
very real way then oral history projects at whānau, hapū, and iwi
level have the potential to assist the amplifying of voices, stories and
experiences that make us each distinct. This was in essence one of
the key goals in the research project from which this paper was
originally derived. Using oral history life narrative interviews the
project examines the ways in which members of my iwi have
perceived their identity as Rangiwewehi: what it means to be
Rangiwewehi; how we learnt these things; and how we have sought,
and seek now, to pass them onto our tamariki (children) and
mokopuna (grandchildren). The project also asks what we would
need to know as individuals to strengthen our identity as
Rangiwewehi; and what would we need to know collectively to
strengthen the iwi as a whole. The responses to these questions even
within our own relatively small iwi have shown the significant
diversity of opinion. In this context oral history is proving a useful
tool to highlight both our similarities and our differences in opinion,
which in turn supports us to gain a greater understanding of who we
are.
Oral history theory and practice hold the same potential for
other Māori researchers also. That is not to say that oral history is
perfect and faultless. Obviously it is not intrinsically based within a
Māori world view and would need to be adjusted to fit within our
own frameworks. Paul Thompson notes that ‘oral history is not
necessarily an instrument for change; it depends upon the spirit in
which it is used. Nevertheless, oral history certainly can be a means
for transforming both the content and the purpose for history.’24 The
purpose for which the narratives are intended forms a key
determinant of the potential oral history may have as a useful theory
and method for Māori researchers. Linda Mead (Smith) offers some
insight in this regard:
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To transform our colonized views of our own History (as
written by Pākehā) requires us to revisit, site by site, our
history under western eyes. This in turn requires a theory or
approach which helps us to engage with, understand, and
then act upon History.25
Although this statement was made in relation to kaupapa Māori, oral
history has also been used in this way by oppressed and
marginalized groups. Alessandro Portelli identifies other strengths,
which he argues makes oral history different, and in the context of
this paper may contribute to the transformative potential of oral
history as a tool for Māori researchers.
Portelli highlights the orality of oral history sources as a key
feature of what makes oral history different.26 While this may seem
obvious there are some significant implications that arise from this
assertion. For example if an oral history is recorded and written, or
transcribed, then in effect the source is no longer oral. Portelli writes
that ‘the transcription turns aural objects into visual ones, which
inevitably implies changes in the interpretation.’27 The importance of
the orality of the sources cannot be understated as it has a direct
bearing on the interpretation of those sources. Arguments that the
transcription is simply a written record of what was said in the
interview, while at one level are correct, fail to adequately
accommodate issues of interpretation and the inevitable impact that
has on the meaning of the original recording. There is so much more
to language and communication than simply the words we speak.
The tone, the volume and the rhythm we use all imply meanings that
cannot be easily transferred to the transcription. Another example of
how transcription can change the source is the use of punctuation.
Very few of us would speak in a way that is grammatically correct in
a written sense. We don’t talk using full stops and commas, as
Raphael Samuel points out: ‘The imposition of grammatical forms,
when it is attempted, creates its own rhythms and cadences, and
they have little in common with those of the human tongue. People
do not usually speak in paragraphs, and what they do say does not
usually follow an ordered sequence of comma, semi-colon, and fullstop; yet very often this is the way in which their speech is
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reproduced.’28
Obviously it is not just about the full stops and commas, but
about the richness and meaning that is lost when the oral source is
converted to a transcript, and hence the importance of working from
an oral source (the recording or aural source). The original
researcher has the benefit of having being present at the interview,
and therefore has the benefit of firsthand recollection. There is
nothing in place to ensure, however, that later researchers rely on the
oral recordings rather than the transcriptions archived with them.
Furthermore, listening to the voices of interviewee discussing her
life, experiences, and thoughts, humanizes the research participant,
creating a stronger connection between the people and the project.
Their personalities come through in the oral recordings in a way that
they cannot in transcripts. For Māori researchers, it is one way to
ensure quite literally that our research participants have a voice.
This voice is prominent in oral history because ‘oral history
sources are narrative sources.’ 29 It is in these narratives that our
research participants use their voice, to tell their stories, whatever
they may be. These narratives comprise the raw material of oral
history, the stories that are told, and the way in which they are told.
These are all features that allow the participant to authentically
express themselves as well as providing a wealth of important and
interesting knowledge and information, and are yet another avenue
for Māori researchers to explore our ways of knowing and being.
Māori ways of knowing and being, and their incorporation into
research practices, have been criticized as lacking the requisite
objectivity of rigorous academic scholarship. Historian Lise Noel has
raised this issue and suggested what indigenous people would need
to do to overcome it: ‘The first thing that will have to be called in
question will be the principle of…complete objectivity. In seeking
emancipation, the oppressed…would do best to renew the
prevailing discourse by emphasizing the relative nature of
differences in identity and recognizing the inevitability of competing
subjectivities in the development of knowledge.’30 Yet oral history is
a convenient tool by which Māori researchers can emphasize the
value of subjectivity as Portelli explains, ‘…the unique and precious
element that oral sources force upon the historian and which no
other sources possess in equal measure is the speakers
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subjectivity…Oral sources tell us not just what people did, but what
they wanted to do, what they believed they were doing, and what
they now think they did.’31 Furthermore, Graham Smith has spoken
of the ‘…interventionary potential of theory‛, and argued that ‘…we
ought to be open to using any theory and practice with
emancipatory relevance to our indigenous struggle.’32 This includes
those theories and practices like oral history that are based in
Western epistemologies. Not that we should take for granted their
epistemological backgrounds, but that we may be able to develop a
greater depth of theoretical understanding to support the adaptation
of those theories to our own purposes, and encourage the
development of our own intellectual frameworks.
Māori, as with many other Indigenous peoples, have been
oppressed by theories. 33 As such our caution is understandable.
However, developing a greater depth of knowledge and
understanding of different theories simply allows us the opportunity
to utilize their potential more effectively for our cause. Linda Mead
(Smith) highlights the importance of engaging with theory as a
means to both more fully understand our realities and more
effectively plan for and deal with those barriers that prevent or
interfere with the realization of our tino rangatiratanga.34 As Graham
Smith argues, this is an essential part of ensuring that ‘…the
academy has been critically engaged, not simply dismissed,‛ and that
‘…theory and research have been critically reconstructed/reclaimed
to work for our interests, rather than against them.’35
Oral history theory and practice offers varying opportunities in
support of Māori research if we take the time to see their potential
and make the connections. A deeper consideration reveals a more
intense critique of oral history and tradition and simultaneously
engages with the impact of literacy on the orality of Indigenous oral
transmission. Oral history theories provide new literatures to assist
in the way we might argue for individual agency, subvert collective
constructions and understand collective memory. Indeed, through
such discussions not only can oral history studies help support
growth in the understanding and articulations of ourselves, but in
return Māori and indigenous researchers have a unique and
important contribution to make to the field of oral history itself.
Oral history, both as a theory and a method, has much to offer
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Māori scholarship as a useful tool to assist us as we continue to
develop and expand our own theories, methodologies and research
practice. As a tool it can support us in our continued endeavors to
make space for our own voice and place within the academy and at
home. As a theory it supports our attempts to legitimize and validate
our subjective experiences, and the knowledge and wisdom that
come out of those experiences. This essay has been, in part, about the
virtues of oral history as a research tool for Māori. I acknowledge
that as a methodology, oral history is used extensively in New
Zealand by Māori and non-Māori alike. What is necessary, however,
is a more theoretically grounded approach which at once unveils the
true value of oral history as more than simply a methodology for
interviewing, but a rich reservoir of critical analysis and theory able
to support and nourish our own aspirations.
In New Zealand oral history is a term that has a wide variety of interpretations,
but has generally been associated with histories that incorporate oral sources.
Oral history though has also been understood generally as a methodology that
relies on interviews. Those who have used oral traditions, however, also refer to
the work they produce as being an oral history despite their reliance on primarily
written documents. This essay investigates these differences, but refers to
international literature to show that oral history is both a complicated, and well
developed field of study worthy of further exploration and application in Māori
and iwi research.
2 Anna Green, ‘Oral history’, in Anna Green and Kathleen Troup, eds, The Houses
of History: A Critical Reader in Twentieth-Century History and Theory, Manchester,
1999, pp.230-252, p. 230.
3 This article is adapted from a presentation made at He Rau Tumu Kōrero:
Māori Historians Symposium, University of Waikato, 29 August 2008.
4 For more commentary on the nature and difference of oral history and oral
traditions specifically see Jan Vansina, Oral Tradition as History, London, 1985;
Portelli, Allesandro, The Death of Luigi Trastulli and Other Stories: Form and
Meaning in Oral History, New York, 1991; Lummis, Trevor, Listening to History:
The Aunthenticity of Oral Evidence, London, 1987.
5 Green and Troup, pp.33; 230-231.
6 See Green and Troup, p. 253; Gerda Lerner, The Creation of Patriarchy, New
York, 1986; Joan Scott, ‘Gender: A useful Category of Historical Analysis’,
American Historical Review, 19, 1986, p. 1067.
7 Quoted in Alison Laurie, J., 'Manufacturing Silences: Not Every Recorded
Interview Is an Oral History', in Rachael Selby and Alison Laurie, J., eds, Māori
and Oral History: A Collection, Wellington, 2000/2001, p.78.
1
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Alfredteen Brown Harrison, 'Oral History: The Pathway to a Peoples Cultural
Memory', in Oral History in New Zealand, 2, 1989, p.1.
9 Laurie, 'Manufacturing Silences: Not Every Recorded Interview Is an Oral
History', p.78.
10 Quoted in Anna Green and Megan Hutchings, eds, Remembering, Writing Oral
History, Auckland, 2004, p.3.
11 José Carlos Sebe Bom Meihy, 'The Radicalization of Oral History', Words &
Silences: Journal of the The International Oral History Association, Vol. 2, No. 1, June,
2003, pp.31-41.
12 Anna Green and Kathleen Troup, eds, The Houses of History: A Critical Reader in
Twentieth-Century History and Theory, p.231.
13 Paul Thompson, 'The Voice of the Past: Oral History', in The Oral History
Reader, ed. by Robert Perks and Alistair Thompson, London, 1998, pp.21-28.
14 Thompson, p.24.
15 Thompson, p.26.
16 Kathy Irwin, 'Maori Research Methods and Processes: An Exploration', in Sites,
28, 1994, pp.25-43.
17 Tuakana Nepe, 'Te Toi Huarewa Tupuna. Kaupapa Māori an Educational
Intervention System', Unpublished Masters thesis, University of Auckland, 1991.
18 Graham Hingangaroa Smith, 'Tāne-Nui-ā-Rangi's Legacy: Propping up the Sky.
Kaupapa Māori as Resistance and Intervention', in NZARE/AARE Joint Conference,
Deakin University, Australia, 1992.
19 Russell Bishop, ‘Maori people’s concerns about research into their lives’, in
History of Education Review, 26(1), 1997, pp.25-41.
20 Albert Memmi, The Colonizer and the Colonized, trans. Howard Greenfield.
London, 1965, pp.190-91.
21 Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed, London, 1970.
22 Some of the more dominant narratives that highlight nation include, Keith,
Sinclair, A Destiny Apart, New Zealand’s Search for National Identity, Wellington,
1986; Belich, James, Making Peoples: A History of the New Zealanders. From
Polynesian settlement to the end of the nineteenth century, Honolulu, 2001; Dalley,
Bronwyn, and Gavin, McLean, eds., Frontier of Dreams: The Story of New Zealand,
Auckland, 2005.
23 Graham Hingangaroa Smith, 'Protecting and Respecting Indigenous
Knowledge', in Marie Battiste, ed., Reclaiming Indigenous Voice and Vision,
Vancouver, 2000, p.212.
24 Thompson, p.22.
25 Linda Tuhiwai Terina Mead, 'Te Aho O Te Kakahu Matauranga: The Multiple
Layers of Struggle by Māori in Education', Unpublished Doctoral thesis,
University of Auckland, 1996, p.43.
26 Alessandro Portelli, 'What Makes Oral History Different', in Robert Perks and
Alistair Thompson, eds, The Oral History Reader, London, 1998, p.64.
8
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Portelli, p.64.
Raphael Samuels, 'Perils of the Transcript', in Alistair Thompson and Robert
Perks, eds, The Oral History Reader, London, 1998, p.389.
29 Portelli, p.66.
30 Lise Noel quoted in James Youngblood Henderson, 'Ayukpachi: Empowering
Aboriginal Thought', in Marie Battiste, ed., Reclaiming Indigenous Voice and Vision,
Vancouver, 2000, p.249.
31 Portelli, p.67.
32 Smith, 2000, p.214.
33 See Linda Tuhiwai Smith, Decolonising Methodologies, London, 1999.
34 Mead.
35 Smith, 2000, p.214.
27
28
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