Pacific voices centre Indigenous research rethink

A powerful new webinar on Indigenous Research and Knowledge Generation: Experiences from the Pacific has brought together leading scholars to highlight the vital role of Indigenous knowledge systems in shaping more ethical, sustainable, and inclusive research.

Hosted by the International Science Council, and supported by the newly established Pacific Academy of Sciences, it was facilitated by University of Auckland Pacific Studies Professor Yvonne Underhill-Sem MNZM.

The session held 11 May featured researchers: Dawn Katovai, Dr Kerryn Sogha Galokale, Dr Emalani Case and Professor Tahu Kukutai from across the Pacific. They hail from Solomon Islands, Papua New Guinea, Hawai‘i and Aotearoa New Zealand, demonstrating the depth, diversity and global significance of Indigenous scholarship.

Dr Underhill-Sem emphasised the urgency of recognising Indigenous knowledge within the wider research landscape, noting that one of the most effective ways to demonstrate the value of the social sciences and humanities is “to understand better how Indigenous knowledges… highlight really important issues” within their own contexts.

She framed the webinar as part of a broader effort to ensure Indigenous research is not marginalised, but instead centred in international scientific conversations. 

Relational knowledge and lived experience at the centre

Across the presentations, a shared theme emerged: research in Pacific contexts is fundamentally relational, grounded in trust, lived experience and cultural protocols.

Dr Kerryn Galokale is the Te Tomokanga Post-Doctoral Fellow with Pacific Studies at the University of Auckland. A Solomon Islands scholar, she highlighted Tok Stori as a distinct Indigenous methodology that centres relationships, reciprocity and belonging.

“Tok Stori as a research process involves people, meaningful interactions, positive relationships and power dynamics,” she explained, describing how knowledge is co-created through shared experiences, conversation and connection with community.

Galokale’s work underscores that Indigenous research is not extractive, but collaborative and ongoing - built through kinship, shared responsibility and mutual respect.

Indigenous knowledge as science - and resistance

Hawaiian scholar Dr Emalani Case from the University of Auckland, brought a powerful perspective on the intersection between Indigenous knowledge and environmental justice, drawing on the ongoing movement to protect Mauna Kea.
Framing Indigenous knowledge as both intellectual and lived, Case centred ancestral knowledge systems as legitimate forms of science.

“This isn’t just a chant… this is our Indigenous knowledge handed down to us from our ancestors,” she said, describing how traditional knowledge encodes ecological understanding, including water systems and environmental relationships.

She also stressed the responsibility embedded in Indigenous worldviews:

“To protect land is really to protect water - to protect everything, because everything is interconnected.”

Case’s work positions Indigenous research not only as a means of understanding the world, but as a form of resistance and future-building - what she described as an expression of “responsibility” to protect place for generations to come.
Reframing the future through Indigenous perspectives

Throughout the webinar, speakers challenged dominant narratives that position Indigenous knowledge as belonging to the past. Instead, they demonstrated how Indigenous methodologies actively shape the future - through environmental stewardship, community wellbeing, and ethical research practice.

Case captured this shift succinctly quoting the words of Assistant Professor Bryan Kamaoli Kuwada from the University of Hawai’i.

“The future is a realm we have inhabited for thousands of years.”

This idea of Indigenous futurity - acting today with responsibility to future generations - emerged as a unifying thread across the session.

A growing movement for Indigenous-led research

The webinar also highlighted the critical importance of growing infrastructure supporting Indigenous-led research. Professor Tahu Kukitai, co-Director of the globally esteemed Māori centre of research excellence in Aotearoa, Ngā Pae o te Māramatanga, talked about the efforts of leadership over more than two decades to nurture Indigenous research leaders and elevate Indigenous Knowledges at scale.

Speakers pointed to increasing international recognition of Indigenous knowledge systems as essential in addressing global challenges - from climate change to social inequities.

Underhill-Sem closed by reinforcing the importance of collective effort, noting that advancing Indigenous research requires shared commitment across disciplines, institutions and communities.