Cultural Safety in Aotearoa New Zealand

Introduction

New Zealand legislation like the Health and Safety in Employment Act (1992) is aimed at ensuring that all workers, including researchers, remain physically safe. However, there has been less attention to other dimensions of the safety of researchers or the people we encounter in the course of research. An international exception is the UNESCO Universal Declaration on Bioethics and Human Rights (2005) which addresses the domains of medicine, life sciences and related technologies and seeks ‘respect for human dignity, human rights and fundamental freedoms ’. In this chapter, we reflect on the links between culture, safety and research. In particular, we consider how cultural diversity in contemporary New Zealand society requires us to consider cultural aspects of the conduct of research.

It is our contention that research involving other people should be founded on principles of partnership . Mason Durie ( 1988 ) has asserted that, following the principles of the Treaty of Waitangi, a working partnership between Māori and non-Māori will be central to the success of any Māori health research. This view has been endorsed and elaborated on in subsequent documents such as the Health Research Council of New Zealand’s Te Ara Tika: Guidelines for Māori Research Ethics (undated). In this chapter we explore the notion of ‘partnership’ in research as a key element of culturally safe research and argue that Durie’s assertion can, and should, inform (and even transform) social and health research in Aotearoa New Zealand – whether it involves Māori or not.