Gout is a health condition that can be managed to prevent morbidity and premature mortality. Māori have a higher prevalence of gout yet are less likely to receive appropriate care than non-Māori. There is scant literature presenting the patient/whānau voice relating to the health system response to gout. The study reported in this article aimed to highlight barriers and enablers in achieving best practice management of gout as defined by patients in order to inform the development of appropriate pathways and services. Using a Kaupapa Māori approach, interviews were undertaken with 23 participants as part of a multi-layered intervention to improve the management of gout for Māori.

This article is written as a provocation. By re-examining the practice of discouraging children from speaking te reo Māori in schools, we challenge our students and other researchers to be alert to the ways in which Māori are often positioned in critical research. Many otherwise radical accounts that focus on Māori assimilation into a Western social order unwittingly take a coloniser-centric approach, inevitably representing Māori as passive non-agents.

Indigenous wisdom traditions regard knowledge as an active and creative process of coming to know. Descriptions of the emergence of knowledge are found in cosmological whakapapa narratives, which reflect and inform an Indigenous worldview. Outlined in this article is an Indigenous Māori research paradigm that is underpinned by the cosmological whakapapa and describes knowledge creation as a relationship with experience. A Māori methodological framework, Te Hihiri process, is offered as a research tool to keep researchers grounded in Indigenous wisdom, guided by ancestral knowledge and entrenched in spirit.

This article explores the impact on whānau wellbeing following wāhine being transferred to either secondary or tertiary care hospitals to receive health care for themselves or their baby during the birthing journey. It was found that throughout this process, the wāhine and whānau faced a series of challenges that compromised their wellbeing. Feeling isolated from their home, support networks and baby, and not fulfilling their motherhood expectations were major challenges.

In 2018, we curated the Te Takarangi Book List: a collection of 150 Māori-authored non-fiction books. The list profiles some of the important Māori leaders, thinkers and authors of our time. From the first book published about the Māori language in 1815 to the works of current Māori scholars, researchers and writers making their mark and claiming a voice in the research environment of Aotearoa New Zealand, this is a sample list to celebrate. This article details how we curated this special book list and highlights some of the undeniable themes that emerge when a mass of books are purposely brought to sit together.

The 2007 United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (the Declaration) has gained increasing attention as a tool for promoting Indigenous rights. The study reported in this article contributes to the discussion about the Declaration’s effectiveness by analysing its role in advancing Indigenous peoples’ self-determination. A qualitative case study was conducted between January and February 2018 with 18 Māori activists in Aotearoa New Zealand, using a rights-based and Indigenous-based approach to form the analytical framework.

The COVID-19 pandemic has caused the world to stop. It has halted societal modes of being and operating, and collective responsibility is now premised on a discourse of prevention or fear. These tensions are also relevant to higher education. In this situation report we aim to elucidate such tensions through Pacific Indigenous philosophy that affirms collective and relational ontologies by way of transnational Pasifika engagement in the university. This report is produced by two Pasifika researchers who have never physically met. However, through the digital vä, their voices are connected to tell this story.

He Vaka Moana is a strengths-based project framed by oceanic principles and methodologies that connect us as Māori and Pasifika to the ocean. The underpinning kaupapa and theoretical framework of He Vaka Moana is the Tongan proverb “pikipiki hama kae vaevae manava”, which refers to our individual vaka coming together to support each other as we navigate the moana. He Vaka Moana operates through tuākana-tēina relationships, with Māori, Pasifika and Pākehā re-search fellows across disciplines working with experienced academics, professional staff and new and emerging re-searchers towards Māori and Pasifika student success.

As a Samoan educator, I have frequently heard the claim that Pasifika students need to learn how to learn to succeed at university. As part of the He Vaka Moana Fellowship in 2018, I sought to explore this claim by conducting talanoa with 24 Pasifika students who had taken a Pacific Studies course at the University of Auckland. The talanoa focused on their thoughts about learning and learning processes inside and outside the university. This study demonstrates that Pasifika students know how to learn and frequently reflect on their learning processes.

Leadership Through Learning is a 12-week (i.e., one-semester) programme for Māori and Pacific tertiary students run by Te Fale Pouāwhina, a Māori and Pacific student learning service at the University of Auckland in Aotearoa New Zealand. The programme is designed to help students lead, empower and transform through normalising their leadership and learning success. As a strategy, normalising success counters negative stereotypes, micro-aggressions, and the everyday colonialism and racism these students encounter. By normalising success, positive stereotypes are created that challenge the deficit framing faced by Māori and Pacific students.