Muliagatele’s research shows that Pacific peoples are “cultural, connected, creative, dynamic and transnational" (operating across national boundaries).
They continue to support their homeland with significant remittances as money for family, via tourism dollars, saofai (chief bestowal ceremony) and as family reunion and funeral contributions.
Traditionally, matai must ensure the well-being of their family, both in the village of their birth and wherever they now live outside of Samoa. The thesis features findings from interviews with 24 members of the Samoan diaspora in Sydney, San Francisco and Hawaii and provides “a window into the evolution of the relationship of matai with Samoa over time and space,” he says. In his thesis, Muliagatele uses the ava ceremony as his central focus because he believes this particular form – there are others – demonstrates respect in Samoan culture, especially in the way the matai are formally seated. Samoan is notable for its differences between formal and informal speech as well as a ceremonial form of the language used in Samoan oratory. He says he learnt to read his own language the same way many others did, by going to church and having to read aloud. They were often also linguists, so they had the skill of writing different languages and they did a very good job, I still refer to their work.” “They did a very important thing they wrote the language down phonetically with the aim of translating the Bible into Samoan. The written language owes a huge debt to the first missionaries to arrive in Samoa from the London Missionary Societies in 1830, says Muliagatele. In some ways, even we Samoans had to ‘decolonise ourselves’ to appreciate our own language, which is always changing and evolving.” “The mental process of acquiring knowledge and understanding in Samoan is like any other language. That couldn’t be further from the truth, he says. When I was there, there were those who thought Samoan was only a ‘social’ language used for everyday conversations.” “I got a job at the Ministry of Education as a principal writer on the new curriculum which, among other things, introduced the teaching of Samoan language and culture for the first time in New Zealand. Then, with the introduction of Tomorrow’s Schools and the resulting 1993 curriculum reform, he found himself at a milestone moment in education. What started as a five-year pilot scheme was eventually extended to 15 years and Muliagatele stayed on as one of the foundation teachers, in between periods of further study and qualifications in both secondary and ESL teaching. “English teaching for second language learners wasn’t popular in secondary schools at the time, but the need was there so we collected students from lots of other schools.” His parents were already in New Zealand, having arrived in the 1960s in response to the labour shortage and subsequent opportunities for migrants.īack in Aotearoa and married with a son, he ended up at Mt Roskill Grammar on their fledgling English as a Second Language (ESL) programme, teaching recent arrivals from all over the world, including the Pacific. “It was a great experience to be trained in New Zealand and a great privilege that the government looked after us,” he says. Muliagatele was raised and educated in Samoa until he was 20, when he travelled to New Zealand on a government scholarship and attended teachers’ college in Auckland for two years.Īrmed with his NZ Certificate of Teaching, he returned to Samoa to work out his bond, where he taught primary and then junior high school in Apia. His thesis, Notions of Respect and Politeness in a Transnational Samoan Community: Toe Laumeanuti o le Fa’aaloalo i Agatausili a Samoa i Atualuluga, focuses on the Samoan matai (chiefs) ava (kava) ceremony as a metaphor for respect (faaaloalo), and has never been done before. Educator Muliagatele Vavaō Fetui, who has devoted his life to teaching the Samoan language and culture, can now add another impressive string to his bow.Īt 78, he has graduated with his PhD in Pacific Studies from the University of Auckland’s Faculty of Arts in the autumn ceremonies, after completing only the second PhD thesis ever written entirely in Samoan.
0 kommentar(er)
