Tagaloatele Peggy Fairbairn-Dunlop is Foundation Professor Pacific Studies AUT University. She returned from Samoa in 2006 to be Director of Vaaomanu Pasifika at Victoria University, Wellington and then to AUT in 2009. Peggy has been publishing on Pacific development issues for over 30 years drawing on her New Zealand and Pacific experience as teacher, university lecturer, women’s and youth NGO community activist and with UN and other donor agencies. Her research critiques global models for their appropriateness to Pacific peoples especially how these impact on the family systems. Documenting oral stories is another passion. She is Samoan.

Cultural well being and the Pacific diaspora

Recent times has seen a proliferation of cultural indicators of wellbeing and cultural security many of which critique global models against differing contexts of place and time. Examples are the Maori Quality of Life Indicators (Te Puna Kokiri, NZ 2007) and the SPC Strategic Cultural Framework (2010) which is the result of Pacific wide consultation with Pacific peoples living in their own home lands. This paper argues that while there are commonalities of experience, neither the Maori nor the SPC framework adequately capture the aspirations of Pacific peoples living in New Zealand today, many of whom have now lived in NZ for over three generations. Whilst recognising the Pacific comprises many small nation states each with their own culture and language, this paper draws on data from a NZ case study to present a ‘NZ- Pacific’ set of cultural indicators – which give priority to a respect for the past (genealogies) as the baseline for the present and a model for future well being.