The Western work ethic of rewarding individual hard work is at odds with the cultures of many indigenous groups, according to UQ social science graduate Dr Ruby Welch.
Dr Welch spent the last 10 years studying the work ethic, and the social structure of New Zealand's Maori people and compared her findings with those of mainstream New Zealand society, or the Pakeha system.
Her 222-page thesis, called We walk into the future backward, includes some of the interviews with more than 200 Maori and Pakehas from 1993-2003.
They focused on their perceptions and attitudes to New Zealand's changing labour market.
Dr Welch said traditional Western work ideas focused on individual effort and money to acquire material goods, whereas for Maori, their culture governed their economic actions.
She said personal ambition took a step back as success was not measured by one's job but by one's standing in the Maori community.
Wealth is shared in the whanau (extended family), the hapu (subtribe) and traditional roles of the Marae (village).
She found most Maori worked in gangs of family members and other Maori on road works, the meatworks or forestries.
Marae activities are governed by a strict division of male and female roles that are governed by the concept of tapu, or sacred considerations.
Being jobless was not humiliating for the Maori individual as many find plenty to do on the Marae in rural villages.
“Although some Pakeha argue that Maori are lazy, my findings prove that Maori are hard workers albeit for different goals and purposes than their Pakeha counterparts,” Dr Welch said.
“Governments in Western societies such as New Zealand and Australia have assumed that all actors in the market, irrespective of cultural background, aspire to the same rewards and outcomes for their individual activities.
“Consequently, policymakers tend to put in place legislation without considering the differences in the value and belief constructs of the various actors who participate in the workforce.
“The regulations of Western labour systems are, therefore at odds with many indigenous concepts of work and my findings equally apply to the Australian Aboriginal people as they would to the various Indian tribes of North America.”
She said she chose the title We walk into the future backward in response to the comments made by her Maori survey participants who insisted that Maori don't make important decisions without consulting their elders and the sayings of ancestors first.
The 70-year old from Stafford Heights, a New Zealand resident from 1973-1996, graduated from the University of Queensland last Friday.
MEDIA: Dr Welch (3861 4945, rubyphd@aapt.net.au) or Miguel Holland at UQ (3365 2619)
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