Participant Q&A: Reimagining Pacific research into gender equality
17 March 2025On 26 February 2025, Pacific Women Lead hosted an insightful webinar about reimagining Pacific research into gender equality. The webinar was the first in a new series focused on advancing locally led development. You can watch a recording of the webinar on YouTube.
Moderated by Merewalesi Nailatikau, the discussion explored innovative research methodologies that prioritise Pacific contexts and credibility.
At the event, panellists ‘Ofa Guttenbeil-Likiliki, Virisila Buadromo, Niketa Kulkarni and Nikki Bartlett, shared their insights on the transformative potential of research practices that amplify local perspectives.
The webinar discussion prompted numerous thoughtful questions from the audience. However, due to time constraints, the panellists were unable to address all of them. To ensure that these queries were not overlooked, we compiled the list of questions and the co-authors of the report have kindly provided detailed responses. The full list of questions and answers follows.
The ability for all stakeholders to remain flexible in their approach and expectations was critical, as locally led processes required a learning curve for everyone involved. This approach inevitably lengthened timeframes and increased costs, particularly to cover the additional expenses associated with meaningful collaboration and multiple authors. Creating an enabling environment was key to navigating these challenges.
Advocates from DFAT and DT Global/PWL played a crucial role by yielding power and broadening the purpose of the research to better reflect local perspectives. Additionally, individuals leveraged their social capital and positionality, such as the PWLES team leader and the Pacific authors, fostering trust and legitimacy within the process. At the same time, the Pacific authors demonstrated a strong willingness to engage in collaborative approaches, ensuring the research remained grounded in local knowledge and priorities.
This collective commitment to adaptability and shared decision-making was essential to achieving a truly inclusive and representative outcome.
This is really an approach question, where authors approach different perspectives with curiosity rather than judgment. This is also a key benefit of the talatalanoa methodology, creating safe spaces for dialogue, where participants feel heard and respected is crucial. Being challenged by unfamiliar notions of gender and sexuality is not uncommon to all authors and it’s seen as a valuable opportunity to learn, unlearn, and deepen understanding, a key principle in meaningful, locally led research.
From the outset, we recognised how challenging and fraught it would be to develop one collective narrative for the Pacific across any of the chapters. The realities across countries (and even within countries) are very diverse, and we did not want to dismiss the importance of that nuance. To the extent possible / appropriate, we tried at a minimum to differentiate between Melanesia, Polynesia, and Micronesia. However, it was clear early on that much of the available data and reports focused heavily on Melanesia. This acknowledgement turned into a significant finding for PWL which emphasised the need for more programmatic attention in these regions (particularly the North). While drafting, the authors also proactively sought qualitative insights from local experts and professionals about the experiences in areas where data was scarce.
Definitely language and terminology where concepts such as gender equality, sexual orientation, or identity may not have direct translations in local languages. Western terminology often feels foreign or even confrontational. Again, the methodology used by the authors helps to address this by using participatory and storytelling approaches that enable people to convey ideas in more relatable ways. The fact that the Pacific researchers held credibility and were well known to the movement also helped to set the tone for the conversation — especially on taboo topics.
This hinges on how we understand bias. All research holds bias, we cannot fully remove it from research. However we can acknowledge and make explicit the bias held and account for it/mitigate it to an extent in our processes. For example, each researcher brings inherent human biases that influence their decision-making processes throughout the research including data sensemaking. One way we mitigated Western research bias (positionality of Nikki and Niketa) was to ensure the research team included authors with a Pacific research bias (‘Ofa, Viri and Michelle). Bias in interpretation of evidence was further addressed through collective sensemaking to ensure a diversity of perspectives shaped the analysis.
Another way to think about bias is to think about power; who holds it and how does this shape the process and outcomes of research. Processes where power is devolved can further mitigate bias such as collective sensemaking opportunities (however this is not a panacea as ‘Ofa pointed out, if not carefully designed can reinforce an existing bias).
Pacific Women Lead convenes annual reflection and analysis workshops, which we will use each year to track the implementation of the report’s recommendations. These workshops will also provide a space for program stakeholders to document where changes have or haven’t occurred. Additionally, we plan to use this analysis at the endline to assess and communicate PWL’s impact.
This quote comes from Pacific feminist scholar Professor Yvonne Underhill-Sem. You can read a bit more about her history and thinking about audacity here.
We’d recommend checking out TokSave.
Yes, you can watch a recording of the webinar on YouTube.
Although not explicit; the methodology and conversation highlights the need to fund Pacific women/feminists/activists to undertake research that aligns with their priorities and therefore holds benefit for their collective work.
Many women-led/CSOs lack core funding… everything is funded on a project basis, which leaves little funding for (i) capturing what is being learned about what works, in which context, for whom and why and (ii) exploring gaps in evidence that are identified by Pacific women/activists/feminists to further their own understanding and strengthen their efforts.
Pacific Women Lead Enabling Services (PWLES) is committed to continuing these conversations. We plan to convene further discussions/webinars on this topic with donors, policymakers, and stakeholders to explore how research approaches rooted in feminist and decolonial principles can be better understood, valued, and applied in policy and program decisions. We see these engagements as crucial steps towards strengthening the evidence base for gender equality in ways that are contextually relevant and locally led.
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