The Hei metaphor: An emerging conceptualisation of research from Solomon Islands

Abstract

Western research paradigms have dominated the area of educational research. Recently, Indigenous research paradigms have emerged to help Pacific scholars in their research activities. The dominance of Western research paradigms can be a problem for understanding indigenous cultures because communities perceive the world differently. The benefit for Pacific Indigenous researchers is to conceptualise concepts and metaphors that capture the relevance of what they are doing or studying as part of their communities. There are some existing Pacific research analytical frameworks such as the Kakala research framework from Tonga or the Fijian Vanua research framework. The purpose of this paper is to present an emerging Pacific research framework from the Solomon Islands context, the Hei concept. The Hei concept is useful as it relates the Western notion of research to the traditional Solomon Islands process of collecting and preparing the Canarium indicum nut (known as ngali nuts in Solomon Islands), which can be understood as a metaphor for the collaborative and collective approach to the collection and analysis of data in research. This metaphorical understanding of research provides a useful analytical framework for novice researchers from small island developing nation states (SIDNS) in the Pacific.