Abstract
Rainbow+ communities are at high risk of experiencing sexual harm as well as a raft of other confounding factors that compromise their health and wellbeing. The Manalagi Project, our country’s first nationwide research endeavor to focus on Pacific Rainbow+ MVPFAFF+ communities’ health and wellbeing, is led by Pacific ways of knowing and being situated within the importance of relationships. In this address, I draw on my experiences as the Principal Investigator for the Manalagi Project in working with Pacific Rainbow+ communities to design research that seeks to empower and provide space for our communities aspirations to be heard, advanced and supported. Often, visibility for Pacific Rainbow+ peoples focuses on the hypervisible and underscores ways we don’t fit in.
Manalagi rejects notions of disconnection and adversarial stances that supposes conservative, highly-Christianised views embedded within Pacific communities must lead to the rejection of our Rainbow+ whānau. Instead, choosing to focus on the Sāmoan concept gafa, or genealogy, our research approach seeks to remind people of the ways we do fit in and works to restore the mana of our Rainbow+ whānau as integral community members who once occupied honoured and respected positions in our cultures.
In taking the position that community sits at the heart of meaningful change, I argue that a community-focused approach to research that seeks to unpack the complex beauty of genealogical relationalities is an important factor in being able to advance conversations around sexual harm in our communities. In doing so, I believe we honour mana-mai-le-lagi, or a mana sanctioned by our heavens, gifted to us by our ancesors.