Knowing and learning
Subtitle: an indigenous Fijian approach
By: Unaisi Nabobo-Baba.
Publisher: Institute of Pacific Studies, University of the South Pacific; Institute of Pacific Studies
Published: 2006
Place of publication: Suva
Language: eng
Number of pages: 165
ISBN-13: 9789820203792; 9789820203792
Subjects: Indigenous peoples -- Fiji -- Viti Levu.; Ethnoscience -- Fiji -- Viti Levu.; Fijians -- Social life and customs.; Indigenous peoples -- Education -- Fiji -- Viti Levu.
Description: In Knowing and Learning: An Indigenous Fijian Approach, author Unaisi Nabobo-Baba has employed a decolonized 'vanua research' method to explore how her people, those of Vugalei, in southeastern Vitilevu, acquire and transmit knowledge. By documenting the various dimensions of knowledge and their value and applications in Vugalei society, the author enables the indigenous voice to be heard. Nabobo-Baba's finding have obvious implications for formal education models - and she discusses how they impinge on evrything from school architecture to teaching methods, curriculum development and educational research, and how they go some way toward explaining the apparent failures of the past affirmative action strategies. This ground-breaking book provides an 'insiders' view of how an idigenous society percieves itself and the world around it, and is set to raise the level of debate on the development of Fiji as a post-colonial nation.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. [155]-161) and index.
Table of contents: title: Making spaces for the voices of indigenous peoples: an epistemological journey among the Vugalei; title: Undertaking research in the Fijian village; title: The Vugalei Fijian worldview: seeing with the eyes, heart, soul and 'stomach'; title: Ways of knowing; title: analysis, acceptance and change; title: Knowledge that counts; title: what is important to the Vugalei Fijian; title: Silence, clan boundary, space and gifting as ways of knowing; title: Teaching and learning in Vugalei; title: Acknowledging Vugalei epistemology in education and development.