As Pacific early career researchers (ECRs), relational interconnections and engagement are at the heart of our collective responsibilities to each other. Although we share a mutual responsibility to our research communities (in academia and industry), each Pacific ECR is unique in our field of research and genealogical connections to the Pacific. This paper engages the Indigenous story work methodology to capture, negotiate, and make meaningful links between our research experiences and relational excellence. This methodological approach reveals thematic elements of respect, responsibility, reciprocity, reverence, holism, interrelatedness, and synergy are woven throughout the paper to highlight our collective va-relationality and potential as ECRs. Our collaborative approach to defining and engaging with Pacific research creates new and innovative possibilities for Indigenous and Pacific research excellence.

Introduction

In line with recent collaborative work of Pacific Early Career Academics (see Baice et al. 2021; Leenen-Young et al. 2021; Thomsen et al. 2021), this article also confronts many assumptions about what it means to be Pacific early career researchers (ECR), and the cultural mechanisms we use to make sense of our positionalities as researchers in academia, industry, and our wider communities. Our Collective encompasses a range of disciplines, including science, design, education, humanities and social sciences. Connected by our sacred and innovative Pacific ancestors, we united under the guidance of Fijian scholar Sereana Naepi at ‘He Pito Mata Awakening the Potential- Early Career Research Wānanga’, hosted by the New Zealand Royal Society in June 2021. During the wānanga, Samoan/Tuvaluan poet Selina Tusitala Marsh delivered this poetry excerpt above that reflects her message of unity, where her navigation to potential lies in her ancestral past as she journeys towards a common good. We resonate with this as we explore our varied experiences as Pacific ECRs, in and outside our respective institutions. We show that our research is not created in isolation from the world around us.

In constructing this article, we shared critical insights about what we found meaningful in our personal and professional trajectories. These conversations led us to explore the connections and fractures in what is often presumed to be a homogenous experience for Pacific ECRs. We are diverse across age, gender, race, ethnicity, location of upbringing, familial affinities, and institutional affiliations. As Pacific ECRs, our need to define ‘research excellence’ is in response to working in neoliberal and Eurocentric institutions in Aotearoa-New Zealand (NZ) (Kidman 2019). These institutions often reward extractive research created in isolation, especially when involving Indigenous communities. Our collaborative exploration and efforts reveal a different approach to knowledge production grounded in collective responsibility and relationality.

Central to our collective exploration to deconstruct conventional academic outputs, we also discussed innovative approaches to using our Pacific languages in research. Our relational approach found that using a single Pacific vernacular would homogenise our related yet incredibly diverse histories, cultures, and experiences. Despite our varied and distinct Pacific heritage languages, we found a shared vernacular in our exchange of stories. These narratives incorporated the exchanging of personal belongings, cultural pieces, names of mentors, and practices that sustain us today. Together we found strategies to share how we draw from the past in our research while also creating new approaches to inspire Pacific ECRs yet to come.

Through discussions over Zoom, we shared our experiences to explore stories that captured our nuanced experiences as Pacific ECRs. These complex narratives reveal how we conceptualise and enact relational research, a concept grounding our professional work in communities and reciprocity. These stories are woven throughout the paper alongside key literature to analyse the robust ways we define relational research. We herein juxtapose our understanding of Pacific research excellence with global notions of research excellence, discuss how relationality is central to understanding research excellence from a Pacific ECR perspective and utilise Indigenous story work methodology (Archibald 2008a, 2008b) to engage with our narratives of research excellence. To begin, however, it is critical to ground our journeys concerning the Indigenous people and their understanding of research excellence as Pacific ECRs based in Aotearoa-NZ.

Positioning research on whenua

Although most of us are not Indigenous to Aotearoa-NZ whenua, our indigeneity is ancestrally rooted in places within Te Moana-nui-a-Kiwa. Our reference to Indigeneity or Indigenous relates to our connections with whenua and each other as Pacific ECRs. Firstly, it is critical as manuhiri to acknowledge tangata whenua, the Indigenous people of the land, and their distinct values and practices. At a relational level, excellence includes demonstrating the core value of humility and service by acknowledging one's position and being respectful as a visitor would within the lands of another. The proverbial Samoan statement further supports this shared belief across the Pacific, ‘E lele le toloa, ae ma’au i e vai’. Despite where one is in the world, they will always return to their home – to their roots, culture, histories, and language. The return home can also occur in new lands, partly eased through our ancient connections to tangata whenua within Aotearoa NZ. Not only does this afford us a relationship distinct from other settler groups, but we can learn from their experiences of navigating and transforming excellence in research, an area yet to be fully explored.

Despite the shared genealogies, values, practices, and journeys of Pacific peoples with tangata whenua, we cannot assume that our experiences of knowledge construction, colonisation and reclamation are homogenous. Our Indigeneity negotiates our place-based vā-relations. It carries an ethical politics that confronts and reminds us not to perpetuate oppressive and demeaning practices that disadvantage Māori and other Pacific peoples directly impacted by settler-colonialism. We are also part of the settler-colonial rhetoric that supports the erasure of lands, language, and identity. Most of our parents and grandparents entered this country through immigration work schemes driven by the government of the day for the demand for cheap labour.

Consequently, those who stayed adapted to the requirements of the newly adopted and coveted educational system as a survival strategy within the ‘promised land of milk and honey’. The success of a Pacific scholar within the mainstream education system is regarded as a symbol of excellence. As we have reflected upon ourselves, it continues to provide honour to families and communities over generations.

The imprints of settler-colonialism have also led to the development of hegemonic legacies, including standards of excellence, which we hold. Over time, we become implicit in the cycle of meritocratic behaviour in contrast to our ancestors’ cultural collective ethos and strengths. For the Pacific ECR, the demands of academia and research force us further from our traditional culture, identity, and language. In addition, the colonial histories of our Pacific homelands provide a space to position our decolonial and Indigenous Pacific intentions. Moreover, our Pacific Indigeneity continues to be directly and indirectly shaped and reshaped by colonial and intergenerational trauma that pervade our Pacific homelands and the settler-colonial state in which we position our thinking, writing and research. This knowledge of our position within Aotearoa NZ enables us to think about va-relationality within ourselves, with each other as Pacific ECR, with tangata whenua and their knowledge system, and with the dynamic and shifting knowledge system, we currently operate within.

Global research landscape

Further concept development of research excellence as it relates to us as Pacific ECRs also requires consideration and understanding within a global context. In 2018, European scientists, policymakers, practitioners and scholars created five broad definitions of research excellence. They found that the term research excellence cannot be fixed, fully defined, and is open to interpretation. It requires quantification and measurement, resulting from the demands of evidence-based policies. The construction of research excellence indicators is a socio-political practice that influences science practice. Finally, developing transparency in the ‘participatory process’ of producing indicators is required to meet research excellence (Ferretti et al. 2018, p. 739).

Expanding from Europe to the Global North, research excellence is characterised by a continuous and closed system of competition, economic growth, privilege and power. Therefore, research excellence is associated with competition where ‘researchers have always tried to be the first to find and the first to open new pathways of knowledge’ (Beretz 2018, p. 30). In science and technology across industrialised countries, ‘universities are seen as engines of innovation and sources of high-quality talent for growth of high-tech industries’ (Haddawy et al. 2017, p. 389). The associations between those who determine excellence, how it is assessed, measures of excellence and who judges them are deeply embedded in all our systems. They are often underpinned by Euro-American-centric norms that privilege white middle-class practices and values (Kidman 2019).

These Euro-American-centric norms lead to the notion that research excellence is socially-constructed and is also open to the frailties of society by those who maintain power and privilege. They include biases and inherent prejudices, which result in a lack of diverse perspectives and representation, inequitable resource allocation and access for those who do not fit the construct of excellence. Globally renowned Māori academics Smith and Webber (2019) argue that ‘in most colonised jurisdictions, across the world generally and around the Pacific Rim, in particular, Indigenous communities continue to suffer high and uneven levels of social, cultural, economic, and political inequality when compared to non-Indigenous populations’ (p. 814). Societal institutions responsible for education and research in these settler-colonial nations remain critical sites of struggle, as they embody colonial, systemic structures that inherently favour Eurocentric knowledge and ideals. The quest for research excellence also leads to research and innovation inequalities and straggling scientific outputs (Beretz 2018). Research excellence, therefore, can widen inequities amongst institutions and nations. Furthermore, managing research institutions using a corporate approach based on neoliberal ideals can drive negative perceptions of excellence (Beretz 2018). These lead to inequitable and oppressive outcomes for minority groups, with many left undervalued and underserved.

What constitutes excellence is a contextual matter, shaped and filtered through ideas linked to impact, relevance, quality, equity, and appropriateness. As a fundamental academic value, excellence can be a ‘positive driving force that sets examples and provides less-biased incentives and rewards’ (Beretz 2018, p. 33). Thus, universities and research institutions have a ‘strong responsibility to be flagships, to act as beacons and examples’ (ibid). Pacific peoples’ desire to connect, shift thinking and practice depend on the research's relevance, appropriate design, delivery, and aim. In agreement with Paul Ramsden, the late I-Kiribati scholar Teresia Teaiwa positioned deep learning (2011) as emerging from a ‘qualitative change in a person's view of reality’ (p. 214). Although gathering data and evidence are valid, there are benefits in how such information is utilised to improve lives for Pacific peoples and their future generations. Thus, only meaningful research actively transforms thinking and practice. Disrupting the status quo and transforming processes and outcomes to meet Indigenous people's learning more effectively and socio-cultural aspirations is crucial (Smith and Webber 2019). The role of researchers is to ensure the approaches, concepts, and methodologies utilised within research resonate and align with the lived realities of the involved communities (Suaalii-Sauni 2017). As Pacific researchers, this means negotiating the tensions between naming and implementing processes and outcomes that (re)present the majority, without further marginalising the marginalised, are part of our robust and systematic analytics.

Pacific and the region: locating research purpose

As we move from the global context, it is crucial to acknowledge and recognise the Pacific region to which we as Pacific ECRs have ancestral ties.

Pacific scholar Yvonne Te Ruki-Rangi-o-Tangaroa Underhill-Sem (2020) claims, ‘Oceanic narratives invoke notions of relationality that Indigeneity makes possible in the Pacific and allows for both fluidity and mobility, rootedness and grounding in (is)lands’ (p. 317). This statement implies that research purpose in the Pacific involves locating one's self and the Collective's selves within the kāinga (extended families, kinfolk) and to’utangata (generations). As a result, forming a collective ‘positioning [that] can be grounded, in many multiple and/or variable ways’ (Underhill-Sem 2020, p. 317).

For Pacific Island nations, building human capital, capacity, and capability was paramount to regaining control of their decision-making from colonial administrators during the 1960–70s. This phase inspired several Pacific leaders and scholars to step up and lead the way (Wendt 1982; Hau’ofa 1994; Hereniko 1999; Trask 1999; Heine 2002; Sanga 2002; Teaero 2002; Teaiwa 2017). Like the quotes above, Pacific researchers interpret research responsibilities and notions of excellence by evoking their values, attitude and skills to ensure Pacific voices and the experiences of their communities and families are present and visible. Space here precludes us from highlighting all works that privilege Pacific ways of being, knowing, and doing across Oceania in various nations, islands, and communities. However, work by Heine (2002), Bevacqua (2017), Na’puti (2019) and Bennett (2022) provide an example of how scholars working within the Northwestern Pacific (Micronesia) navigate ways to centre their voices and experiences while their nations remain politically governed by or in a political relationship with the United States.

The challenge we face as Pacific ECRs is demonstrating our understandings of research excellence (which may disrupt dominant discourses) whilst continuing the development of our identities as Pacific peoples within these colonial spaces. For instance, extra and unpaid labour goes into explaining/unpacking Pacific research excellence in institutional systems and continuing the development of research excellence as Pacific peoples. Argentinian decolonial scholar, Walter Mignolo, sees the shift from the deficit descriptor ‘third world’ to that of ‘Global South’ as a symbolic liberation from Western democratic rhetoric (2021). Locating indigeneity and decoloniality in the Global South is symbolic. Furthermore, Mignolo and Walsh (2018) centred relationality as the key to understanding decoloniality. For us, the Collective development is central to our process of excellence, allowing us to privilege and develop relationality which assists in sustaining and revitalising our cultures within academic research spaces. This sustainability and revitalisation through research ‘benefits Pasifika communities for improved lives’ (ST, 2022). It is part of the ‘importance of conducting unhindered research while representing our people, family, and communities’ (TL, 2022). These quotes, alongside others throughout the article, demonstrate our commitment to honouring our various connections and the collective relationality of excellence through seeing-knowing-being-doing excellence.

Relational theory: seeing-knowing-being-doing excellence

Māori scholar Carl Mika (2017) takes an Indigenous world philosophical view of the self as being constructed by the world and vice versa. His view affirms that all entities in the world, including humans, are interrelated. This theorising is an appreciation of the holistic, interrelated nature of Indigenous Pacific knowledge, ideas, values, and practices. Seeing-knowing-being-doing excellence affirms that pursuing knowledge requires us to appreciate the nuances in our sensing and making meaning of the world. Although our experiences transcend geographic, political, colonial, and spiritual boundaries in the Pacific, our (re)presentations of being and becoming in the world are intimately tied to our whakapapa as kāinga of Pacific migrants settled in Aotearoa-NZ. Our obligation is to respect and honour Te Tiriti o Waitangi, tangata whenua, and one another as fellow ECRs within this Collective. Learning to make sense, navigate, and appreciate these positions of interconnectedness is a measure of our relational essence and excellence.

Ethics of care and generosity, articulated above, underpins relational theory (see also Suaalii-Sauni 2017). Reciprocating and respecting our interrelational and interdependent connections with our communities, one another, and other entities in the world, is an appreciative practice. Certain Pacific concepts are used to (re)present relationality, including va (Samoa), vā (Tokelau, Tonga), vahaloto (Niue), veiyaloni (Fiji), and wā (Hawaiʻi, Māori) (Togiatama-Otto 2015; Fa’avae 2018; Aporosa and Fa’avae 2021; Smith and Wolfgramm-Foliaki 2021). Pacific scholars affirm the centrality of Indigenous relationality when unpacking the interconnections between knowledge, world views, people and practices (Wendt 1982; Māhina 2010). The state of va/vā/vahaloto/veiyaloni/wā as spatial and temporal relations within Western academia are epistemically in the margins, deemed of little value. When implementing theory and the agentic and emancipatory conditions aligned with its practice, wā/veiyaloni/vahaloto/va/vā-relationality embodies a disruptive yet generative state and space where Indigenous stories, perspectives and experiences find grounding and relevance.

Locating methodology: Indigenous story work

Locating an appropriate methodology that aligned with our knowledge, values, worldviews, and practices was a priority. Our approach using talatalanoa allowed us to privilege our desire to maintain wā/veiyaloni/vahaloto/va/vā-relationality and enabled collaboration and cohesion within the Collective despite tensions of power. Thus, while Indigenous Pacific methodologies such as talanoa and talatalanoa (Aporosa and Fa’avae 2021) centre on the oral traditions of some of our ancestors, the concept did not resonate with the majority of lived realities. Given the ongoing development of our relationality and the unfolding of our potential as a collective, our responsibility was to ensure inclusiveness with our methodology, analysis, and representations of peoples’ stories linked to ‘research excellence’. Honouring our diversity and specificities, we reflected on employing Archibald's Indigenous story work (Archibald 2008a). Jo-ann Archibald, also known as Q’um Q’um Xiiem, is a First Nations scholar from Stól:lō with St’at’imc ancestry. Her work canvases Indigenous studies and education with a focus on the importance of story work in meaning-making and Indigenous ways of being, doing, and knowing. While Archibald is not Pacific, her story work methodology was well-suited to our group as it honours the oral traditions of all our ancestors, focuses on relationality and provides a collective approach that does not privilege one Pacific group over another. This approach was essential to us as part of the development of our relationality involved respecting the ‘mana’ (prestige) of people's voices. Indigenous story work privileges lived experiences and stories; how they contribute to cultural revitalisation, resistance to colonisation, and disruption, as ‘the words story and work together signal the importance and seriousness of undertaking the educational and research work of making meaning through stories, whether they are traditional or lived experience stories’ (Archibald 2008a, p. 3).

Before we elaborate on the story work methodology, context is required regarding our approach and processes. Prior to the end of He Pito Mata, we collectively decided to stay in contact via online Zoom sessions. The sessions commenced in August 2021 and spanned over six months. Each session followed a general prayer routine, followed by introductions and talatalanoa focusing on the paper's broad themes, concluding with prayer. During the sessions, members offered their experiences and perceptions of the process we were experiencing around research excellence. A dedicated session also focused on a Pacific meaning of research excellence. Employing a deductive analysis approach, comments were canvassed from eight online fono sessions using transcript and video recording excerpts. Direct quotes were selected and used to populate the indigenous story-work values table, with two core themes emerging. Firstly, the group discussed the process, context and structure of research excellence, which was then applied in writing this article. Second, the group identified foundational values of research excellence, discussed in the following section.

Four data collection and analysis techniques support the Indigenous Story work methodology, including capturing, appreciating, negotiating and meaning-making (Archibald 2021). Multiple approaches to capture stories, included digital tools (e.g. Zoom and Otter.ai), communicative modalities (listening, free talk, recounts, retelling), and visually (art, graphing and CAD (computer-assisted design)). The combined forms of capturing information enabled the group to deconstruct and reconstruct our thoughts whilst appreciating our distinct and shared worldviews and perspectives. Stories, complex conversations, jokes and disagreements were shared in the sessions over 80–100 h, including meetings with focus groups to discuss specific responsibilities with the paper. Although sessions seemed light, there was also rigour behind decision-making stages as a group. For example, discussions around authorship and the merits of authorship types were held. A sub-group explored the different options supported by research and was presented to the larger group.

Further discussions were held, including developing a collective criterion (if we chose to use the traditional authorship approach), resulting in a mini-survey amongst the group because of time constraints. This process is one example of how the group negotiated spaces, pathways and direction. This approach has transferred into the article writing process to develop a collective voice. In this stage of making meaning of ourselves, we noted that our journey is relatively new, and we are still learning about each other and our diverse positions. Therefore, we are in a stage of sense-making rather than meaning-making. In other words, we are still sensing what collective research excellence is from our multiple and connected lenses. Reaching that next phase requires more time and close engagement. While these four elements cannot fully represent the complexities of the discussions, and responsive actions taken, there are facets of the process of collectively determining relational excellence that can be highlighted.

Although ‘research excellence’ is an ideal prioritised by institutions predominantly through the production of outputs, which has its purpose, it is not an ideal that comfortably resonates with our responsibilities and values. These instead focus on ensuring the continuity, survival, and thriving of our kāinga and communities. Nonetheless, we are located in institutions within higher education and research, and it requires us to (re)think, articulate, and transform the normalised practices and structures so that our community knowledge, worldviews, and practices can flourish for generations to come. After all, ‘excellence’ is in realising our ‘being and becoming' with-by-for each other and our communities.

Collective cultural values

Our collective cultural values live within our ancestral stories. In this section, we unfold our conversations further, highlighting how research excellence is interwoven through Indigenous story work and its underpinning values. Archibald (1997, 2008a, 2008b, 2018, 2021) highlights the seven Indigenous principles of story work: respect, responsibility, reverence, reciprocity, holism, interrelatedness, and synergy. Our collective relational process employing the story work methodology and its principles, are visually (re)presented in , which was inspired by mathematical structures known as graphs/networks. The nature of a graph allows the exploration of connections within and across countless contexts, mathematical or otherwise. Drawing on this feature of interconnectedness, it embodies our organic engagements by the interconnecting swells across the Pacific Ocean. It was important to illustrate the folding and unfolding of critical conversations and their depths of value, which are connected to the seven principles of Indigenous story work (Archibald 2021). The cyclic and circular movements inside and out are evidence of our positional Pacific selves forming intersections whilst acknowledging difference in locality, discipline, and research excellence. As Pacific peoples, we resonate with Archibald's principles and through our ongoing fono, unfolded the potential of our collective and our research excellence. It is important to note that while we have separated these values into individual sections, we do not view these values as separate. Rather, in accordance with Indigenous world views, values, customs, and practices are understood as holistic and cyclic (Bear 2000). Therefore, our dialogue and resulting understandings are grounded in multiple values, spaces, and contexts.

Conclusion

In summary, as a collective of Pacific ECRs, we constructed what research excellence means to us as Pacific ECRs. Research excellence begins with the development of relational excellence. It is through building and developing deep and cultivating meaningful relationships with one another, that we were able to bring our whole being, our ancestral ties, and wisdom into this space where we made sense of what excellence means to us as Pacific ECRs. Relationality is central to us as Pacific people, and through story work (Archibald 2008b) we were able to learn through our own and each other's stories, through intergenerational experiences, and through our connections to land and nature.

Our processes of engagement were rigorous, and we were systematic in our negotiations, that built on our values, our ways of being and becoming by-with-for each other and our communities. The seven principles outlined by Archibald (2008b) allowed us to demonstrate how collective research excellence is built not only through relationality, but is underpinned by key values such as respect, responsibility, reverence, reciprocity, holism, interrelatedness, and synergy. Our negotiated process of story work addressed tensions of power, via negotiating knowledge bases, that demonstrated care, protecting mana moana and the spirit of our collective engagement. This is important as relationships and the building of va/vā/wa/vahaloto/veiyaloni are at the centre of our reality as people of and from the Pacific ().

Through building these relationships, we are accountable to each other as well as our collectives – a central part of the ceremony of Indigenous research (Wilson 2008). Thus, for us, as Pacific ECRs, research excellence must begin with relationality, and the development of relational excellence.

Acknowledgements

Theresa Alipia for her contribution to the talatalanoa. Tiana Fauolo for providing feedback on drafts of this paper and contribution to the talatalanoa. George Faga for providing feedback on drafts of this paper. Sereana Naepi for your inspirational leadership and encouragement to put this paper together. We wish to acknowledge that the views of the authors are of their own and do not reflect an official position of their villages, tribes, or organisations. This Collective is yet to connect with other Pacific ECR whose lens or identity are not represented in this paper. We hold the door open.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).