Collective or Individual—Why Not Both?

Inez Fainga‘a-Manu Sione is a community research fellow in partnership with Australia’s first Pasifika-owned holistic health hub, Village Connect Ltd., and the Pathways in Place project through Griffith University. Her doctoral research explored Pasifika perspectives of health with three generations including island-born elders, New Zealand- and island-born parents and Australian-born teenagers. Her community research fellowship explores how Pasifika sovereignty over their own cultural practices, data, language and ways of knowing, being and doing is upheld despite living in a foreign land (Australia). It explores how such sovereignty is maintained by Pasifika peoples through the use of Pasifika methodologies when co-creating projects that are driven from the ground up. This is being established through a Pasifika registered training organisation. Inez is also a qualified actress, teacher, lawyer and associate pastor with her Samoan husband, Toleafoa Bruce Manu-Sione, at Hosanna Logan City.

Tagaloa Glenda Stanley is an adjunct lecturer in the Centre for Systems Innovation at Griffith University, and partnerships manager for the Kingston State School FamilyLinQ initiative focused on improving educational, health and life outcomes for students and their families. She has worked extensively over the past two decades facilitating complex community and government forums to enhance positive outcomes for students, families, local communities and government and nongovernment agencies. Glenda is passionate about developing and supporting placed-based initiatives to create positive impact and systems change.

Dion Enari is a lecturer at the School of Sport and Recreation, Faculty of Health and Environmental Sciences, Auckland University of Technology. He holds a PhD in Samoan culture from Bond University, Gold Coast, a master’s in international relations from Griffith University and a Lefaoali‘i (high talking chief) title from Lepa, Sāmoa. His research interests include sport management, sport leadership, mental health, Pacific languages, Indigenous studies and transnationalism.