title: 'Thinking-through-Complicity' with Te Iwi o Ngāti Hauiti: Towards a Critical Use of Participatory Video for Research

authors: Kindon, Sara Louise

subjects: human geography

abstract: This thesis explores some of the seductions and dangers of participatory video for research (PVR) involving Indigenous Māori and Pākehā research partners. The project within which PVR was used focused on exploring relationships between place, identity and social cohesion within ‘remote’ rural communities. It involved about 15 members of the Potaka whānau of Te Iwi o Ngāti Hauiti in the central Rangitīkei district of the North Island, Aotearoa New Zealand. A small group of iwi members, myself and an audiovisual specialist and trainer negotiated the project’s focus, process and ethics during 1998. A different group of iwi members were then trained in video production and community research methods later that year and supported to produce their own productions, and carry out video research interviews with other iwi members. The entire process of negotiation, training and collaborative research was filmed for archival and research purposes with everyone’s consent, and several collaborative publications and presentations have been produced since 1999.

The discursive space opened up by Ngāti Hauiti’s engagement with, and use of, video provides an opportunity to attend to the ‘cultural mediations’ that occurred throughout the research partnership and to inquire into the possible ‘empire building effects’ of visual technologies within participatory research more generally. The focus on PVR within a Māori context also prompts questions about the visual’s transformative potential within geographic research, and the implications of working through the use of a visual medium for rethinking disciplinary practices and knowledges, particularly when working cross-culturally. 

In the thesis, I first review the evolution and attendant challenges associated with both the use of participation and video within research contexts. I trace their similar origins in modernist attempts to ‘know’ and ‘empower’ marginalised others, and highlight the ongoing marginalisation of Indigenous perspectives within mainstream debates. I then engage with conceptualisations of complicity and develop an analytical framework that expands on current discursive and ideological discussions to also attend to its material, embodied and spatial dimensions.

Using this framework and a complementary autoethnographic and ‘hyper-self-reflexive’ approach, I track aspects of my own power, complicity and desire within my research practice in the PVR project during the period 1998-2001. This approach involves the development of a particular reading position to focus on critical incidents of my research practice and a means of grappling productively with the polyvalent nature of my audiovisual and other information sources. I discuss these critical incidents within three processes associated with the research: facilitation, production and reception, attending to the complex and multifaceted interplay of audiovisual texts, their producers and their audiences throughout. 

Such a thesis is expedient given that powerful and often uncritical rhetoric that besets participatory research and development is fast taking hold within geography. It is also timely given the proliferation of affordable and accessible audiovisual technology and its increasing use within geography and other social sciences. As geographers respond to calls to embrace more visual, tactile and other methods, this thesis offers possibilities for the repoliticisation of participatory discourse within social geography, through a more considered engagement with participatory action research, Indigenous research practices and audiovisual media such as video. I offer cautionary insights into the ‘power-full’ effects of these ways of working.

text: 'Thinking-through-Complicity' with Te Iwi o Ngāti Hauiti: Towards a Critical Use of Participatory Video for Research This thesis explores some of the seductions and dangers of participatory video for research (PVR) involving Indigenous Māori and Pākehā research partners. The project within which PVR was used focused on exploring relationships between place, identity and social cohesion within ‘remote’ rural communities. It involved about 15 members of the Potaka whānau of Te Iwi o Ngāti Hauiti in the central Rangitīkei district of the North Island, Aotearoa New Zealand. A small group of iwi members, myself and an audiovisual specialist and trainer negotiated the project’s focus, process and ethics during 1998. A different group of iwi members were then trained in video production and community research methods later that year and supported to produce their own productions, and carry out video research interviews with other iwi members. The entire process of negotiation, training and collaborative research was filmed for archival and research purposes with everyone’s consent, and several collaborative publications and presentations have been produced since 1999.

The discursive space opened up by Ngāti Hauiti’s engagement with, and use of, video provides an opportunity to attend to the ‘cultural mediations’ that occurred throughout the research partnership and to inquire into the possible ‘empire building effects’ of visual technologies within participatory research more generally. The focus on PVR within a Māori context also prompts questions about the visual’s transformative potential within geographic research, and the implications of working through the use of a visual medium for rethinking disciplinary practices and knowledges, particularly when working cross-culturally. 

In the thesis, I first review the evolution and attendant challenges associated with both the use of participation and video within research contexts. I trace their similar origins in modernist attempts to ‘know’ and ‘empower’ marginalised others, and highlight the ongoing marginalisation of Indigenous perspectives within mainstream debates. I then engage with conceptualisations of complicity and develop an analytical framework that expands on current discursive and ideological discussions to also attend to its material, embodied and spatial dimensions.

Using this framework and a complementary autoethnographic and ‘hyper-self-reflexive’ approach, I track aspects of my own power, complicity and desire within my research practice in the PVR project during the period 1998-2001. This approach involves the development of a particular reading position to focus on critical incidents of my research practice and a means of grappling productively with the polyvalent nature of my audiovisual and other information sources. I discuss these critical incidents within three processes associated with the research: facilitation, production and reception, attending to the complex and multifaceted interplay of audiovisual texts, their producers and their audiences throughout. 

Such a thesis is expedient given that powerful and often uncritical rhetoric that besets participatory research and development is fast taking hold within geography. It is also timely given the proliferation of affordable and accessible audiovisual technology and its increasing use within geography and other social sciences. As geographers respond to calls to embrace more visual, tactile and other methods, this thesis offers possibilities for the repoliticisation of participatory discourse within social geography, through a more considered engagement with participatory action research, Indigenous research practices and audiovisual media such as video. I offer cautionary insights into the ‘power-full’ effects of these ways of working.

year: 2012

title: Transformation geometry: Mā te nekehanga, mā te whakaata, mā te hurihanga

authors: Manuel, Hirāni

abstract: The whakataukī (proverb) promotes the notion that navigating obstacles or barriers successfully is a natural part of learning. The learning and teaching of the Māori language and culture are key practices in Māori-medium settings. Teachers in such classrooms are actively promoting academic success as Māori through the medium of te reo Māori (the Māori language). This stance includes the learning of mathematics.

text: Transformation geometry: Mā te nekehanga, mā te whakaata, mā te hurihanga The whakataukī (proverb) promotes the notion that navigating obstacles or barriers successfully is a natural part of learning. The learning and teaching of the Māori language and culture are key practices in Māori-medium settings. Teachers in such classrooms are actively promoting academic success as Māori through the medium of te reo Māori (the Māori language). This stance includes the learning of mathematics.

year: 2015

title: Modified Output in Response to Clarification Requests and Second Language

authors: Ogino, Masayoshi

subjects: second language acquisition

abstract: Modified output, second language (L2) learners' reformulation of their own utterances, has been attracting researchers' interest as an important component of learner interactions, and as a manifestation of interlanguage development and psycholinguistic processing. 

The output hypothesis (Swain, 1985, 1993, 1995, 2005) claims that the act of production constitutes part of the process of L2 learning in terms of noticing, hypothesis testing and metalinguistic functions.  This hypothesis has been used as a theoretical framework to investigate the relationship between modified output and L2 learning (e.g., McDonough, 2001, 2005; Nobuyoshi  Ellis, 1993; O'Relly, Flatiz,  Kromrey, 2001; Takashima  Ellis, 1999).  However, the empirical evidence from these studies does not yet appear to confirm unequivocally that the production of modified output facilitates L2 learning. 

The present study further explored the impact of modified output on L2 learning, by means of an experimental pre-test, post-test and delayed-post design.  The production of modified output was triggered by one type of implicit feedback, clarification requests.  The data were collected from 28 undergraduate students who were learning Japanese as a foreign language.  The target linguistic feature was the negation of adjectives in Japanese, and a total of 1,011 negations were elicited and analysed.  The impact of modified output on L2 learning was measured in two different aspects of potential outcomes of modified output (i.e., grammatical accuracy and interlanguage development).  In addition, the study investigated whether the non-targetlike forms which participants previously modified were then produced in the subsequent situations of use.  

The output hypothesis was originally framed in terms of the relationship between output and grammatical accuracy, but the findings of the current study suggest that production of modified output in response to clarification requests may facilitate the progress of interlanguage development towards targetlike use even when its immediate impact on grammatical accuracy may not be observed.  Therefore, the present study lends at least partial support to the claim of the output hypothesis.

The results did not clearly demonstrate whether or not production of modified output might sensitise learners to avoid the use of the same non-targetlike form that they have previously modified.  This indicates a possibility of the limited role of production of modified output in L2 learning, and suggests that the follow-up feedback to learners' modified output may be necessary to maximise the impact of modified output in facilitating L2 learning.

text: Modified Output in Response to Clarification Requests and Second Language Modified output, second language (L2) learners' reformulation of their own utterances, has been attracting researchers' interest as an important component of learner interactions, and as a manifestation of interlanguage development and psycholinguistic processing. 

The output hypothesis (Swain, 1985, 1993, 1995, 2005) claims that the act of production constitutes part of the process of L2 learning in terms of noticing, hypothesis testing and metalinguistic functions.  This hypothesis has been used as a theoretical framework to investigate the relationship between modified output and L2 learning (e.g., McDonough, 2001, 2005; Nobuyoshi  Ellis, 1993; O'Relly, Flatiz,  Kromrey, 2001; Takashima  Ellis, 1999).  However, the empirical evidence from these studies does not yet appear to confirm unequivocally that the production of modified output facilitates L2 learning. 

The present study further explored the impact of modified output on L2 learning, by means of an experimental pre-test, post-test and delayed-post design.  The production of modified output was triggered by one type of implicit feedback, clarification requests.  The data were collected from 28 undergraduate students who were learning Japanese as a foreign language.  The target linguistic feature was the negation of adjectives in Japanese, and a total of 1,011 negations were elicited and analysed.  The impact of modified output on L2 learning was measured in two different aspects of potential outcomes of modified output (i.e., grammatical accuracy and interlanguage development).  In addition, the study investigated whether the non-targetlike forms which participants previously modified were then produced in the subsequent situations of use.  

The output hypothesis was originally framed in terms of the relationship between output and grammatical accuracy, but the findings of the current study suggest that production of modified output in response to clarification requests may facilitate the progress of interlanguage development towards targetlike use even when its immediate impact on grammatical accuracy may not be observed.  Therefore, the present study lends at least partial support to the claim of the output hypothesis.

The results did not clearly demonstrate whether or not production of modified output might sensitise learners to avoid the use of the same non-targetlike form that they have previously modified.  This indicates a possibility of the limited role of production of modified output in L2 learning, and suggests that the follow-up feedback to learners' modified output may be necessary to maximise the impact of modified output in facilitating L2 learning.

year: 2008