Bevan Tipene-Matua has qualifications in law, Māori history and resource management and has worked for over a decade as a researcher, teacher and regulator in the area of social and cultural implications for Maori and indigenous peoples of biotechnology and genetic science. A former Head of Maori studies at the University of Christchurch, and Executive Director, Christchurch Polytechnic, he has led several research teams on the impacts of genetic testing technologies on Māori over the last 9 years. He is currently leading a Māori ethics team working with geneticists and health researchers on an indigenous led population genetics health study. He lives in his traditional homeland and coastal village Porangahau, Hawkes Bay, with his wife and three children and works as a community leader in indigenous development (working with youth, families and tribal elders), resource management and customary fisheries issues, and is building a local research and consultancy entity.
Keynote presentation abstract
Reconciling Indigenous Spiritual Traditions with the Spiritless Scientific Ethos: Does Indigenous Led Genetic Research Provide an Answer?
As the first decade of the 21st century closes it is timely to reflect on where we have come as STS researchers, teachers and activists. For nearly two decades Māori and other indigenous peoples have raised concerns over the ethical and spiritual impacts of novel genetic technologies. It poses key questions for social science researchers who have not slowed down life patents over indigenous genetic materials and ethically unsound genetic research on indigenous communities. Despite significant effort and resource expended on social science research into the negative impacts of new biotechnologies, indigenous and other communities remain at risk from those impacts including the continued rise of life patents, bio-prospecting, genetic testing and GMOs. This paper argues that this unsatisfactory situation is largely due to indigenous spiritual traditions being replaced with the western science tradition driven by the unsustainable pursuit of profit and power, which has stripped society of a time tested moral code to devastate indigenous and other communities. This situation, established by propaganda and hype, has made it nigh impossible to implement indigenous spiritual frameworks, for example, for genetic research with indigenous communities. What is then needed is careful reflection on how this situation might be rectified for indigenous communities. I explore this in relation to a set of key ethical principles and learning’s gained from resent experiences with an indigenous led genetic research project.