Knowing and Learning – An Indigenous Fijian Approach

“If you were to imagine for a moment that all the world’s experts, or “voices”, on knowledge, or more specifically what constitutes important knowledge, were to be boxed in an auditorium, we would have to concede that the sound of indigenous voices speaking about important indigenous knowledge would be hard to distinguish in the hubbub- the sound of voices going further and examining and discussing such indigenous epistemology would probably be lost altogether.” In Knowing and Learning: An Indigenous Fijian Approach, author Unaisi Nabobo-Baba has employed a decolonized ‘vanua research’ method to explore how her people, those of Vugalei, in southeastern Vitilevu, acquire and transmit knowledge. By documenting the various dimensions of knowledge and their value and applications in Vugalei society, the author enables the indigenous voice to be heard. Nabobo-Baba’s finding have obvious implications for formal education models – and she discusses how they impinge on everything from school architecture to teaching methods, curriculum development and educational research, and how they go some way towards explaining the apparent failure of the past affirmative action Strategies. This ground-breaking book provides an ‘insiders’ view of how an indigenous society perceives itself and the world around it, and is set to raise the level of debate on the development of Fiji as a post-colonial nation.