Storying Toward Pasin and Luksave: Permeable Relationships Between Papua New Guineans as Researchers and Participants

Abstract

In Oceania, Papua New Guinea (PNG) appears large in the consciousness of exploring social life through the notion of sociality. Scholarship within the Melanesian region employs sociality to interrogate forms of social life and the different ways research methods account for the understanding of interactions between individuals and communities. Yet for the three PNG authors this assumed coherency between epistemes and method highlighted specific conceptual challenges for us as researchers and participants. We identified with two conceptual notions: “pasin” and “luksave” as distinct Austronesian language ideas derived from Tok Pisin—a creolisation of English utilized as a lingua franca throughout the country. We explored the development of pasin and luksave and the ways the conceptual claims served a dual function of developing a methodological and epistemic pathway toward an ethical assurance of meaningful relationality. We extend on current understanding in two ways. Firstly employing the methodology of story as critique of research assumptions and secondly, extend on the process of story work to suggest storying as a novel but relatable research methodology. Storying such research experiences as both method and epistemic accountability, guided our responsibility toward the relationships we hold to people, community and knowledge. Pasin and luksave embed an emancipatory and de-colonial intent through the guise of oral stories. These intentions in our scholarship fostered a form of coherent expressions of research claim and method assumption and also raised questions for us regarding what decolonizing Papua New Guinea ought to consider. Our paper also highlights a reformulation of the different ways research considers Oceania in particular Melanesia and the Papua New Guinean research context.

Bridewealth a Pardon: New Relationships and Restoration of Good Daughters

“…Here luksave is social action and pasin refers to 'ways of being' (Hukula 2019:171). Amongst other PNG scholars, Sai (2007) uses the term pasin to infer a frame in using the statement pasin blo lo [the way or the law]; Kula‐Semos (2009) uses pasin to frame educational middle‐ground between western and Indigenous Knowledge systems; and, Kaiku (2011) mobilizes pasin in the context of how it frames kastom or culture; while Backhaus et al (2020) reflect on how pasin and luksave influence interactions in research practices for Papua New Guinean researchers with Papua New Guinea research participants. Each use suggests pasin as not just a 'way of being' but as a frame through which good social action and good relations are created, managed and sustained.…”