Filipo Katavake-McGrath is a representative of the modern breed of Tangata-Pasifika young professional. Of Tongan and New Zealand Maori (Ngati Raukawa, Ngai Tahu) Filipo brings a career as a journalist, broadcaster, auditor, PR consultant, community relations advisor and policy advisor to his research at AUT University. Melding ethno-socio and career culture into economics and policy research, Filipo is also a member of the GLBT community, so mediating ethnic and moral/gender/sexual orientation cultures and the manifestations of those in policy and economic debates is not just one of his research interests, it is a life-experience he brings to his research.. Through all this, Filipo is a realist who sees value in step-change approaches empowering opposing sides to see value in theirs and others arguments.
Tagata Pasifika Peoples Grown Mediations Of Their Cultural Value
New Zealand’s economic system is at an interesting demographic crossroads. The working age population is increasingly consisting of indigenous and regional-migrant peoples while the ethnic mainstream ages. As this demographic shift occurs, what will happen to the concepts of economic development, quantative analysis as they are perceived by governments. In the cases of Tangata Whenua (people indigenous to New Zealand) and Tagata Pasifika (Migrant Communities from the Pacific Region), oral traditions and narrative based analysis processes had been dismissed as storytelling, and this demographic change may provide a platform for qualitative analysis to re-emerge, in mediated or fuller form, as the effective and relevant means of articulating development in the post-mainstream world.
This paper sets out the efforts made by pockets of business, the public sector and civil society to grow meanings of value around culture and how those meanings are increasingly affirmed by society at large. Ultimately the question this research poses is; how relevant to the Tagata Pasifika peoples involved are these grown mediations of their cultural value, and does greater articulation of cultural value create impetus to incorporate Tagata Pasifika cultural value into mainstream economic policy thinking?
