puff: puff 543 Fields of light, fields of pain; small group work in social work education in Aotearoa/ New Zealand. Peter Cleave

Fields of light, fields of pain; small group work in social work education in Aotearoa/ New Zealand. Peter Cleave

1 Background
In any form of education there are fields of light, those informing places and perspectives that lift the soul and encourage the student. Equally there are fields of pain those zones which seem difficult, almost outrageously so. In social work education in Aotearoa the pain often comes from the colonial or decolonialising experience. The light often comes from the discovery of indigenous points of view, from Maori culture. This paper looks at the way small groups work in these spaces of changing configuration; these fields of light and pain.

The small group work discussed below occurs in the context of a social work programme that includes Masters and Diploma students in a two year course of study at Victoria University of Wellington. I teach as part of a team in four week long modules and twenty three hour seminars spread across the two years. My role is to introduce and encourage research. The style of learning that is employed uses small groups of three to five people as a basic unit.

In the text supplied to the students (Cleave, 1997) there are 400 teaching points with 40 small group tasks, each half way through a set of ten points. Each small group task asks students to meet challenges and solve problems in groups of three to five people. The emphasis is on co-operative inquiry rather than bipolar situations where pro and con positions might be adopted.

An underlying emphasis is on reporting back to the wider gathering, one group to the rest which sometimes involves performance work by the small group. This becomes a matter of assessment of the self and group through statement and restatement of the group situation (cf Bion 1961). Rapid feedback mechanisms from the University Teaching Development Centre at Victoria are used to aid immediate assessment by groups of themselves.

The small groups involved consist of three to five people. The primary task for the groups is of developing research topics. Other group activities in an adjacent course called Aotearoa Studies involve presentations including up to twelve or fifteen people. There is a general sense of preparation for the world of social work in Aotearoa/ New Zealand which entails instruction in bicultural matters and modes of conflict resolution in such tasks as doing the preparation for and facilitating the Family Group Conference.

During the evenings and on formal occasions there is a flow of talk in the meeting house or wharenui. One speaker is followed by another along one side of the house then along the back and then along the other side of the house. Usually there is a waiata or song after every speech. Students are exposed to at least one formal round like this every day in their five day live in, usually following prayers at night.

The traditional Maori word for inquiry is rangahau and there is an effort to stay with the traditional modes of questioning and seeking knowledge. This involves the use of traditional metaphors of enlightenment and discovery. As well as the protocols of the marae such as the routines for the flow of talk outlined above there is also a sense of relatedness, of whanaungatanga.

Throughout, the group of locals is treated as a structure of primary importance. These usually comprise a set of linked extended families or whanau sometimes constituting the next stage of social organisation, the hapu or sub tribe. And so too is the ethnic group, Maori. The home people are at once the local tribe and the Maori people and, for that matter, local government especially in isolated places like Ruatahuna or Waikaremoana in the remote rural areas.

The ‘live in’ is an affirmation or a resumption of ownership identity for the Maori students involved. For some it is their first experience of owning the space that the foreigners are in, a refreshing change from being excluded in their own land, using the concept of exclusion in a manner not unlike the way Murphy (1988) or, later, Rosenfeld (1998) might use the term.

There is an emphasis in the pedagogy employed on trying to see through the eyes of the native, through the lens of the indigenous as opposed to the colonists and then the way the locals work and play with concepts (Barclay, 1993, Cleave, 1997). There is an inversion of collaborative inquiry (cf Rosenfeld 1998) as we might use this phrase to describe an empowerment process whereby the powerful instruct the powerless; the locals have pride of preference, as tangata whenua, locals they have mana or prestige over the space used in instruction.

There is also a sense which seems to be more widespread internationally at present than in New Zealand and that is the search for a leader and a text than New Zealand of a key leader and a key text. As shown at the recent IASSW Jerusalem conference, there is a resurgence of interest in Ghandi (David and Van Goest, 1998) and in the founder of the IASSW, Alice Salomon and her writings (Khulmann 1998).

In Aotearoa/New Zealand there is more of a tapestry of concepts , some of them to do with kaupapa Maori and others to do with ideologies of care usually pertaining to the Children and Young Persons and their Families legislation or the Family Group Conference. Leon Fulcher (1998), for example, has argued for the acknowledgement of culture in child and group care practice.

On the ground it is as though the student is informed by and, if you like, engages in co-operative inquiry with a local, native leader and their philosophy. The conduit or ‘principal actor’ is the local elder or kaumatua who functions as a cultural guide. In small group work these processes amount to key memory and agenda checks, of ‘coming back to the kaupapa’ or point as the kaumatua themselves say. The round of korero at night allows a circle of reflection, a global net for all of the small group work in the day. There is a coincidence of local ethnography, in the early work, for example, of Anne Salmond (1975) who described how this kind of gathering functions. Her work is an important informing document for participants. In this way ethnography shows people how to behave.

2 Conscience and management

In the kind of small group experience described there is an interweaving of social conscience and management, especially the management of events by the group.

There is an interesting coincidence or comparison between Ghandi’s concept of Ahimsa (non-violence or love) Rosenfeld’s concept of generosity, Salomon’s notions of social justice and Maori concepts of relatedness, whanaungatanga compassion or love, matamate- a- one and aroha. There is, in fact, a corpus of words which set the Maori experience aside from the mainstream. These ‘words of love’ refer to an internal landscape of precious things, kare a roto (Cleave 1988, 1998) and they are a set of informing points for social concern or conscience.

This is a set of Maori words referring to affective states. The small groups are using these terms consciously, some people for the first time, as cues and as means of conflict resolution. Many of these words are in the glossary. Small groups engage in problem solving on the marae in a field of images and metaphors. These are fields or worlds of light, ao marama or enlightenment where flashes of inspiration and intuition occur alongside reasoned debate.

In an interesting analysis, Stewart suggests that intuitive moments may be the result of ‘numerous minimal cues’(1996:113). These allow the identification of present experiences with those of the past. Stewart argues that the perception of these cues happens so fast that people don’t notice it happening. Something of this is happening in the marae experience. Not only are students learning key points in mythology, they are in a striking visual field of carvings, latticework, weaving and colour. There are obvious dangers in this kind of identification with the past which can cause a kind of false memory (cf Fischer 1986 and Ketcham and Loftus 1994). These kinds of suggestibility are to be avoided.

Maori social education is community specific based at the hapu or whanau levels. This emphasis on smal to medium sized groups fits with Bion’s ideas and those expressed here. Bion argues that issues of sovereignty are outside of the small group. Of the social work educators considered here, Ghandi’s ideas apply to the level of the state but Salomon (Khulmann n.d.) seems to be community centred. Salomon (ibid) emphasises discussion groups and this would seem to be echoed in Maori contexts where hui involving the extended family or, in the larger scale, sets of extended families are preferred.

These things mount up and comprise the teaching of social conscience, a pedagogy of concern. They are mixed in with attention to kawa or the protocols of social interaction in the marae context is extremely important. This amounts to an ethic, a social responsibility to the other person, the local in the case of a visitor, the speaker in the case of a listener. There are obvious references to be made back to Paulo Freire but also references might be made to Moreno or Boal. There are specific roles to be taken. It is important to stress the socio-dramatic process of kawa as well as styles of argument and exposition.

This is a conscience that rests on several factors. There is set of social skills best learned and practiced in small groups comprising a use of the terms, the ‘words of love’ and the employment of concepts of relatedness. Stewart’s ‘numerous small cues’ (ibid) may also apply. Then there are the fields of light and pain outlined in this paper; these become the dimensions of understanding within which social conscience occurs and develops.

In the case of my own teaching practice and philosophy the social conscience is a matter of always bringing something to the group. There seem to be similarities in this with Alice Salomon’s practices and philosophies. Khulmann (1998 n.d.) mentions an emphasis on seminars, discussions and self developed materials. There is also a resemblance to the way Rosenfeld (1998) uses the concept of ‘generosity’. Salomon and Rosenfeld both seem to have an idea of a manageable group in mind.

A key matter for small group management might be; a conscience for whom? Generally social work educators in Aotearoa endorse a clear and, perhaps, a fixed attitude about the primacy of the tribal group. To some extent this does not sit with recent work such as that by Heelas, Lash and Morris on Detraditionalisation(1997) which seems to suggest uncertainty about such traditional otions of the tribe. There is also more local work such as that by Blythe (1994) which refers directly to the situation of the Maori and suggests post-modern alternatives. These writings call for a sense of doubt about notions of tribe and ethnic group.

However, this is a space of or for learning where belief meets authority and in social work education in Aotearoa there is a very real authority about both tribe and ethnic group. The prevailing model for social work education in Aotearoa is centred on axioms of ethnicity and feminism. The platforms or rafts of class and then ethnicity may have broken up elsewhere but the latter is still very much in vogue in Aotearoa. Small group work occurs in this context and sometimes happens in the gap between an approach which regards the tribal as a notion to be questioned and one which accepts the tribe without question.

It could be that given such an intensity with respect to the tribe or to the ethnic group that the small problem solving group offers real opportunities that other groups do not. Small groups may provide a ‘free zone’, a clear space with a fairly low level of stress or dissonance and where the chance to connect might be best realised. Management of this zone falls to every member of the group; the making over of the zone into a field of light is a teaching task for the social work educator to pass on to the student.

Just as theorists like Castells (1996) suggest that the state provides the space for technology to develop, the fairly tight set of protocols that participants in small groups are using allows communication potential to develop. There is a straightforward, rhizomatic self to net approach used and an appropriate and safe place for information transfer to occur. This ease of communication is important in community development and empowerment (Ife, 1995). It might be argued that most social work occurs in the context of small group management.

3 Fight and flight

In a noted comment Bion, in 1961, talked about the ‘the basic group- the group dominated by one of the three basic assumptions, dependence, pairing and flight or fight… ‘ (Bion 1996). He also said that in the small group at least the groups he studied ‘power and sovereignty do not develop to maturity’ (Bion 1996:7). What follows traverses similar ground.

Small groups may be one way forward in a global context that seems to have a taboo between ethnic groups. Relations between and across ethnic groups seem to be like incest. There is now a perceived impossibility of conflict resolution between ethnic groups. This applies in the former Yugoslavia, the former USSR and fairly well everywhere one looks.

Class is just as hopeless for fairly clear political reasons of a global kind. Belief does not now seem to meet authority in the case of class but to meet and burn with an awful light in the case of ethnic groups. Religious differences where they can be clearly identified seem to offer few breaches. This paper does not explore these matters but it does seem worth noting that the small group seems at least to be a universal, or at least a universally recognised context.

There is a role taking process involved in the noho marae in that it functions as a way for people to ‘find’ their ethnic identity. This is, if you like, a caucus finding situation. As suggested above there could well be a more conscious appreciation of this through readings of Moreno, the founder of Psychodrama and Boal the practitioner of political theatre. Neither of these two are well recognised in social work education in Aotearoa. On the other hand, Kurt Lewin, the founder of Action Research is recognised usually through his adoption by Feminist theorists and practitioners (Laragy,1996, Noble and Briskman, 1998)

Small group work may be the key to the inclusion of otherwise excluded people (cf Rosenfeld 1998). This may entail the exploration of traditional family centred approaches such as through the whanau or extended family. This kind of activity is based on the principle of whanaungatanga or relatedness. Equally, a fairly conventional exercise based approach that incorporates reciprocity, generosity and collaborative inquiry may offer a way forward. Such exercises might draw on a variety of models ranging from those found in youth work, in psychodrama and action research may also offer ways forward.

Similarly we may need to use theorists like Tyson (1989) with respect to evaluating the strength of small groups. Tyson offers clear models of dysfunctional small groups which are very useful as negative examples. He also promotes historical commentary on figures like Bion which help the students gain a sense of perspectives about their group work. Models from cognitive therapy (Freeman 1983) and elsewhere are useful adjuncts.

Small group work, especially co-operative inquiry is difficult. There is debate in the literature as to whether co-operative inquiry is efficient and whether some problems such as those involved in writing are better solved by individuals working on their own (Franken 1997). Obviously this is a distinguishing feature of social work education; it prepares people for work that is group centred, especially where the Family group Conference and similar matters are concerned.

The teaching of small group skills is obviously important for this although the strengths of individual work and the integrity of pairs should never be overlooked. After all a great deal of the group work involves the development of and is, at least technically, for the benefit of individual clients or to clarify relationships between pairs.

Individuals are asked to take their issues to the group as a matter of routine. Given the tasks for small groups set out in the lesson plans provided (Cleave 1997) there should be some internalisation of procedures that facilitate co-operative inquiry on the one hand and individual development on the other. Similarly the group should act as a springboard for further individual or dyadic inquiry.

Bion introduces but does not fully describe an essential community. His critical breakthrough in my view is that he sees the pair as co-existing with the group; it is as though, in his writings the pair comes and goes at will from the group. Bion leaves much of this undeveloped. I would go further and suggest that the pair is to the group as the local is to the global. They are co-existing modes of development, of inquiry. This allows the small group to function effectively in terms of both conscience and management.

4 Fields of light

Growth is towards light in the case of the small group as elsewhere. There is a coherence in Aotearoa with Maori metaphors to do with the world of light and the pursuit of truth into the world of light, ki te ao marama. Bion’s dictum of fight or flight (ibid) seems to apply; groups fight their way forward to the light just as they flee pain.

Co-operative inquiry is about establishing and then returning or trying to return to a central value cluster in a consistent and thoroughgoing manner. For example in rangahau work there is constant definition and redefinition of the whare, the house. The four cornerstones may be characterised as wairua or spirit, tinana or the body, hinengaro or the mind, ora or health. This process of definition and reflection, whakamarama applies to the kare a roto, words of love discussed earlier. Usually principles of whanau or whanaungatanga are involved. Cairns et alia (1997) refer to the parts of a house as metaphors or symbols for the family.

These shared concepts operate as a kind of social conscience. It also functions so as to allow a suspension of disbelief of ethnic, class and gender distinctions, of the included and excluded. Ghandi’s Ahinsa, Rosenfeld’s ‘generosity’ and, in Aotearoa, aroha or matemateaone are aids to this state of group co-operation.

Co-operative inquiry is about screening. The constant definition and redefinition of visitors and hosts gives a reflective device for the included and the excluded (cf Rosenfeld, 1998). The round of talk in the house in the evenings and on formal occasions allows a definition and redefinition of leadership. The round of korero processes positions put and allows leader-group relations to be better explored. These processes and the small group exercises allow instant assessment.

There is an odd mix involved in the matter of instant assessment. There are influences from the martial arts of the Maori. People spread out in whakaeke, the ascent onto the marae so that they may be seen. Both hands are always seen in speechmaking whaikorero so that weapons are not produced by surprise. There is an emphasis on body language in any small group situation and this is accentuated by the body language involved in Maori protocol. This goes with social work practice which naturally values up to the moment assessments and also social work educators who like the present writer use Fast Feedback mechanisms as discussed earlier. Stewart’s ‘numerous small cues’ (ibid) are also important here.

In the noho marae or live in situation there are many small group exercises ‘outside’ of official business that occur. These include waiata or singing, cooking, cleaning up, setting tables, Touch football. The entire week is one group exercise after another and may be comparable with the European youth movements. There is a constant returning to elemental forms; circles of people each around their own fire, metaphorical but also literal as with the ahi kaa of the Maori, the fires of the youth groups including the scouts in the courtyard of the kibbutz.

A central theme of the exercises is recapitulation followed by renewal. In most of the small group exercises used a designated person has the responsibility of summing up. Another has the task of moving the issue concerned forward by casting a net of interest across the group. These roles vary so that it is not the same people who always take up these roles. There are matters of group assessment and group memory involved.

5 Silent search engines and loud discourse

Social work education is often controversial; the review of the social work department seems to be a sport for the rest of the university. Underneath there is a constant quiet search for appropriate perspectives; feminist, ethnic, class based ethnographic and other. The small group in social work education functions in a dyslexia of noise and calm rather like the world of the social worker. Social work itself seems to create fields of light and pain.

In the case described above in Aotearoa there is an emphasis on ethnography, local problem solving techniques, and social work which makes this project something of a strange creation. Also there is an admixture of local or indigenous studies in this case Maori Studies. While this is not the same in other countries there will surely be strong echoes.

Perhaps a mix such as this is essential or at least desirable in social work teaching practice. Social Work education is, by necessity a hybrid. It is important though to keep assessing the composition of the ‘discipline’ because there are contrary tendencies. The tribal or ethnic Maori protocol only allowing men to speak which pertains on some marae might run contrary to feminist thinking for example.

Some influences from the local social work culture seem much more pronounced than found in European countries The use of caucus groups by Maori and by women for example. This is strong amongst educators in Aotearoa as in fact it is in the social work industry itself. The sense of extended family which is professionally encouraged with Family Group Conference work also adds to the attention social work educators place on small to medium group work involving, say, five to fifteen people.

6 The fields of pain

There are various informing perspectives which apply globally. With regard to conflict resolution the small group follows the dynamics, I think, outlined by Bion. Stewart’s work in imagery comes to mind. Fischer’s (1986) work on parenting, memory and ethnicity while written for an audience of ethnographers and literary critics has I think a direct application to small group social work education.

Social work education theorists themselves offer a field of light which plays on these universal trends (cf Salomon, Ghandi Rosenfeld, Cleave ibid). But to begin with there is the processes offered by local people. There are the protocols, the rounds of korereo, the speeches, the groupings, the social world to which the student is introduced and in which the small group functions. This is the doorway to Maori culture reinforced by myth and metaphor explored during the noho marae.

Teaching is always, I think, collaborative inquiry, at least in its initial phase. A teacher is attempting to give something to or to facilitate something with a student. At some point it could be an egalitarian, point- to- equal- point situation and most social work educators (and students) aspire arriving at this plateau, preferably sooner or later. Rosenfeld in his work on exclusion pays careful attention to reciprocity. Also to generosity.

Rosenfeld’s emphasis on reciprocity is echoed in traditional Maori concepts such as utu or tauutuutu or muru. Indeed this is something of an old ethnographic saw which may well have been done to death in the anthropological literature. It is a little more unusual for Rosenfeld to highlight generosity which is found in manaaki, awhi, aroha, and tautoko. There are a number of promising leads here notably a new interest in what might be called altruism. I think Rosenfeld is talking about a critical factor, an ‘x factor’, if you like, without which there will always be exclusion. As sugested earlier there is a further correspondence with Ghandi’s concept of ahinsa.

The most important offering from Rosenfeld is, I believe, his idea of collaborative inquiry and I have argued above that there is an inversion of collaborative inquiry where the locals mentor the visitors in the marae situation. Rangahau or traditional maori inquiry happens in the domain of the whare, the domain of Rongo, of peace. It runs along the lines of whanaungatanga whereby the idea of working in a family group is emphasised. As argued above there is an augmentation of this traditional mode of inquiry with intensive small group work on research outputs.

At the most basic level there is the generation of shared text. The use of small groups as an aid to research topic definition and development in the social work programme is the first step to other matters in co-operative inquiry. The shared text, oral or written is the primary product, the first platform of understanding.

And then there are the fields of pain. In the case of Aotearoa we have at the most general level, the redistribution of wealth in a phase of decolonisation. This is happening in a Treaty conscious phase of history where the Maori are in official terms being included or ‘rescued’ from exclusion by the state through so called Treaty ‘settlements’. This puts a burden of bad faith or false consciousness on teachers and students of social work because by all reasonable yardsticks Maori remain an excluded group.

There are also the local social work practices or culture which are created partly through the conditions generated by the state or arising from historical oppression. The management or at least the negotiation of issues arising from Maori or womens’ caucus groups might fall into this category. A general mood of restoration, of official inclusion of the minority ethnic group by the majority also impacts on local forms of restorative justice such as the Family Group Conference. Small group problem solving rests on finding light and dealing with pain, on ‘fighting’ to go forward towards the light of social conscience and on managing the process of flight. In these ways co-operative inquiry in small groups is itself a form of conflict resolution.

Glossary
ahi kaa, home fires
ao, world
ao marama, world of light
Aotearoa, the land of the long white cloud, New Zealand
aroha-compassion
awhi- to embrace, support
hinengaro, mind
hapu, sub tribe
hui, gathering
iwi, tribe
kare a roto, dearness inside
kawa, protocol
ki, to, towards
korero, speech
manaaki- to care for, assist
Maori, indigenous inhabitants of Aotearoa/New Zealand
marae, courtyard in front of the meeting house
matemateaone, an all encompassing love
muru- plunder, ritual plunder in restorative or retributive justice
noho marae, stay on a marae
ora, health
rangahau- inquiry, research
Rongo- the god of peace
tangata whenua
tautoko- support
tauutuutu- a form of turntaking between locals and visitors where speakers from each side alternate
te, definite article, the
tinana, body
Utu- payback, revenge
wairua, spirit
whaikorero, speech
whakamarama, enlightenment
whanau- family
whanaungatanga- relatedness

Bibliography
Barclay, Barry, (1993) In our image, Longman

Bion,W. R. (1961) Experiences in Groups and other papers, Routledge

Blythe, Martin (1994) Naming the Other: Images of the Maori in New Zealand Film and Television The Scarecrow Press Inc. Metchuen N. J.. and London.

Cairns T, Fulcher L, Kereopa H, Kereopa Te A, Niania P, Tait-Rolleston W,Takuta H and Waiariki W, (1997) Puao-te-Ata-tu (Daybreak) Revisited: Ten Years On, Unpublished Paper, Department of Applied Social Sciences, Victoria University of Wellington and Te Iwi Ngai Tuhoe

Castells, Manuel (1996) The rise of the network society, Blackwell, Cambridge, Mass.

Cleave, Peter (1988) Words of love, Seminar to linguistics, Victoria University of Wellington
(1997) Rangahau pae iti kahurangi; research in a small world of light and shade, Campus Press, Palmerston North
(1998) Koru, Bumper Books (in Press), Wellington
(1998) ‘Words of Love’ in Papers to the anthropology conference, Campus Press, Palmerston North

Cypher, John (Ed) Team leadership in the social services, BASW Publications.

David, G and Van Goest, D. (1998) Relevance of Ghandi to a peaceful and just world society; lessons for social work education Paper to IASSW conference in Jerusalem.

Fischer, Michael M. J. 'Ethnicity and the post-modern arts of memory' in Writing Culture; the poetics and politics of ethnography ed James Clifford and George Marcus, University of California Press.

Franken, Margaret (1997) The effect of talk in argument text construction Unpublished Doctoral thesis, Massey University

Fulcher, Leon C. (1998) ‘Acknowledging culture in child and youth care practice’, Social Work Education Theme Issue: Residential Child Care

Freeman, Arthur (1983) Cognitive Therapy with couples and groups, Plenum press, New York and London

Heap, K. (1979) Process and Action in work with groups, Pergamon Press

Ife, Jim (1995) Community Development; creating community alternatives- vision, analysis and practice, Longman, Melbourne

Ketcham, Katherine and Loftus, Elizabeth, 1994 The myth of a repressed memory, False memories and allegations of sexual abuse, St Martyn’s Griffin, New York

Laragy, (1996), in Fuch, J. The Reflective Researcher, Longman, Sydney

Murphy, Raymond (1988) Social closure; the theory of monopolization and exclusion, Oxford, Clarendon

Noble, C. and Briskman, L. (1998) Social Work Ethics; dissonance between theory and values, Paper to IASSW, Jerusalem conference.

Paine R ed 1985 Advocacy and anthropology; First Encounters,
Institute of Social and Economic Research
Memorial University of Newfoundland

Rosenfeld, J. M. (1998) Exclusion and social justice; from impasse to reciprocity, Plenary paper given to the Peace and Social Justice conference IASW, IASSW ICSW, Jerusalem 1998

Stewart, William (1996) Imagery and symbolism in counselling, Jessica Kingsley Publishing

Salmond, Anne (1975) Hui, Reed, Auckland

Spierenburg, Pieter (1991) The broken spell; a cultural and anthropological history of preindustrial Europe, Rutgers University Press

Tyson, T. (1993) Working with groups, Macmillan Education, Australia

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