During the examination of my PhD thesis, which was on a Māori topic in the area of social anthropology, the internal examiner asked why I had not mentioned kaupapa Māori research. A major reason was that while initially I had started to incorporate it eventually it became problematic to weave it into the theoretical framework I had formed for the thesis. Sharp comments and questions from the internal examiner however, made it clear that my indigenous research approach was indeed kaupapa Māori research. This paper describes the rationale and process underlying the alignment of the thesis concept of “native informant” with kaupapa Māori research.