Abstract:
Precarity is when an individual often finds themselves insecure and uncertain to meet basic
necessity on a daily. This relates to the realities of Pacific Peoples despite living in Aotearoa for many
decades. For this thesis, I had the privilege to interview two Tongan families that expressed their
experiences on precarity, daily. We aim to document and understand the role of work, policy, and
wellbeing in the everyday lives of Tongan households. We wanted to document why having a job or
two is often not enough to these families to resolve the issues of poverty.
The Kakala framework was in cooperate into research as an overarching framework and was
treated as the foundational basis between a researcher and a participant. The Kakala framework is
embedded with Tongan values, and it allows the researchers to use its process during the recruitment
stage. Once the process is finalized, we incorporate a Pacific tool that can also be a methodology. This
Pacific tool was talanoa because it allowed these families to talk freely about their experience in
relation to precarity without feeling anxious in a formal setting. In the process of talanoa we then
included photo-elicitation in one of our interviews where it allows participants to take photos of their
interest and asked to elaborate the significant of each photo to precarity. Although utilizing photoelicitation in Pacific research is rare, its open dialogue for families to use photos to talk about past
experiences and tie connections to their current situation.
Our findings suggest that precarity affects the livelihoods of Tongan families in Aotearoa
with regards to housing condition living in a cold, moldy and damp home often increases negative
impacts on individuals. Furthermore, despite their circumstance both families were still connected and
heavily involved in their community and church.
The importance of understanding the complexities of precarity may consider how to inform
policies that may provide a better living condition for Tonga People. Thus, providing more research
may increase the chance for policies changes in the government to provide a better living for these
families.
