Abstract:
This chapter describes a community music research activity within an urban South Pacific context, and the processes used to ensure that authentic stories and new ways of knowing emerged from this interaction. The research project explored the prior learning experiences of indigenous Māori and minority Pasifika students enrolled in a faculty that teaches the disciplines associated with the creative arts and industries. The specific focus was the development of musical literacy through community music-making. By underpinning all research processes with methodologies that accommodate these populations’ worldviews and utilizing qualitative approaches that fit Pacific cultures, the researchers created the opportunity to enhance the data with new and unexpected findings. We uncovered stories about students’ community music-making experiences and a contemporary South Pacific view of the role of community music. This chapter focuses on those narratives, and the research design that allowed these stories to emerge.