The art of wayfinding: Navigating Pasifika success

Abstract

This website is based upon a one year pilot critical participatory action research (CPAR) project within the Faculty of Education and Social Work, University of Auckland. The embodied approaches of engagement within this project align to Pacific history, traditional Pacific knowledge(s) and contemporary Pacific research methodology. The embedding of Pacific cultural onto-epistemology is at the centre of all phases of the project with the main foci for data collection and theorising; being that of a decolonising agenda (Smith, 2012). Traditionally, teaching the art of wayfinding included specific tools that engaged learners with the complexities of navigation. One such tool is known as the shell map which plots Islands, ocean swells, currents and winds. In this project, the metaphor of shell maps and wayfinding are used in the planned interventions of the project as a cartographic method, to map, reconnect and determine what the University currently provides by way of Pasifika support. The embodied engagement in the making of shell-maps is a provocation for Pasifika students and Pasifika academics to explore their perceptions of success.