Treaty Resource Centre – He Puna Mātauranga o Te Tiriti

"The emergence and dominance of the Māori-centred research paradigm is leaving Pakeha researchers out in the cold. “Pakeha paralysis” draws on my experiences as author, teacher and university ethics committee member to account for the reasons why so many Pakeha postgraduate students are caught in a state of paralysis, deliberately excluding Māori from their general population research samples. While supposedly addressing cultural concerns, through avoiding cultures not their own, these Pakeha researchers fail to fulfil Treaty of Waitangi responsibilities. This paper offers explanations of why this paralysis developed, and how it has been codified into health and tertiary ethics guidelines and in university teaching. The paper ends by offering solutions to work through this cultural web by honouring the Treaty of Waitangi while promoting cultural safety for Pakeha researching New Zealand society.