This paper explores the process of co-designing a mātauranga-Māori-informed mindfulness intervention with rangatahi in a wharekura and examines the effects on wellbeing. Mahitahi co-design methodology underpinned the design, implementation and evaluation of the intervention, and quantitative psychological tests measured improvements in wellbeing and dispositional mindfulness. Findings showed positive indications for a decrease in levels of psychological distress, improvements in Māori quality of life domains and higher levels of dispositional mindfulness.

Tapu and noa are often cited as fundamentals by which we enact tikanga, promote well-being and divide labour. However, exactly how tapu informed precolonial gender divisions of labour is difficult to examine, mostly because of the pervasive influence Christianity has had on cosmological narratives, from which tapu derives (Mikaere, 2017; Rewi, 2010; Te Awekotuku, 1994). This article outlines some commentary on the relationship between tapu, gender roles and colonisation, and tries to extend that scholarship.

There have been many attempts at measuring Māori identity and cultural engagement, yet there have been no scales created to specifically explore whanaungatanga. Whanaungatanga can be operationalised as active participation in and a sense of belonging to social groups and collective, reciprocal caring relationships. In this article, we document the development of a whanaungatanga scale alongside a measure of Māori identity.

He tuhinga tēnei hei whakamārama i te whakatewhatewhatanga i ngā raru o ngā kaipupuri whenua kei ngā whenua tarahiti. Arā noa atu ngā hua kei ngā whenua e takoto ana, heoi anō, arā noa atu ngā aupēhinga ka piri ki ngā whānau kia huihui rātau mō ō rātau whenua. Ko tēnei rangahau ka whai whakaaro mō ngā raru kei roto i ngā Taitara Whenua Māori. Me pēhea e taea ai te whakapakari i ngā hiahia o te whānau kia kore ai e warea te one tapu? 1.4666 miriona heketea o ngā whenua kei ngā ringa o Māori e pupuri ana. E hāngai ana tēnei ki te 5.5% o te katoa o Aotearoa.

Giving voice to kaumātua perspectives and experiences, and those of older people in general, during the COVID-19 pandemic has been rare because older people are more often spoken about than provided with opportunities to speak for themselves. When they have been spoken about, the focus has been on their vulnerability. While such vulnerabilities are a critical concern, this focus ignored their active participation in and contributions to their communities.

Role models serve multiple functions as they influence Māori students’ goals and school aspirations. While Māori students are faced with various educational barriers, scholars contend that having a positive role model can influence their educational persistence and overall engagement at school. Therefore, it is important to consider who Māori students choose as role models and how they influence their goals and aspirations.

This article identifies the entrepreneurial mindset as a resolve to engage in exploration and action in order to address an issue or accomplish a goal. Entrepreneurial mindset, in the context of navigation, espouses an expectation of resilience, analysis, adjustment, application and development in all areas of intention. For thousands of years, Polynesian navigators negotiated the unpredictable and unknown Pacific islands, waters, winds and rains to voyage the breadth of the Pacific Ocean.

Colonising processes, which led to the removal of many hapū and iwi from their whenua through conflict and dispossession, significantly altered Māori relationships with environments and associated tikanga. Mārakai, as a manifestation of ahi kaa, formed an important part of Māori resistance efforts to maintain occupation of their whenua. Large-scale disconnection of tangata whenua from whenua severely undermined their wellbeing and ability to maintain nature-culture relationships through continued practice of ahi kaa.

Mana and kaitiakitanga capture the relationships essential to Māori perceptions of wellbeing. These relationships reflect the interconnectedness and interdependence of humans with the people, places and things in their worlds, and the responsibilities associated with these relationships. Mana is critical for mokopuna, as is the requirement to action it, through kaitiakitanga (Marsden, 2003; Paul-Burke & Rameka, 2015). Kaitiakitanga recognises the place of humans, including mokopuna, to assume guardianship roles and responsibilities.

This article reports research that set out to investigate men’s experiences at taiaha wānanga in Waitaha/ Canterbury, Aotearoa New Zealand, and whether those experiences helped to shape tāne Māori identity. There is a gap in our existing understanding of men’s experiences in this kaupapa, providing a unique opportunity to learn how mau taiaha has shaped participants’ lives. The strongest themes identified within the data include cultural disconnection and the search for tāne Māori identity, along with the role of taiaha wānanga in male identity construction.

This article is intended as a provocation for Indigenous researchers to reflect on their cultures and life stories, and consider how sharing their intergenerational experiences can engender cultural empathy with Indigenous peoples that originate from a different community and are at the heart of their study. I explore how an Indigenous researcher’s life story, from a childhood in the African continent to adulthood and parenthood in Aotearoa, influenced his research direction and design toward Indigenous entrepreneurship as an emancipatory and empowering endeavour.

Māori and Indigenous people are methodological, yet how we theorise our ways of being, our languages and our cultural beliefs is often held to the academic margins. Sophisticated systems of Māori knowledge production, retention and transmission over many hundreds of years, twined together with hard-won kaupapa Māori territory, positions us well to re-centre our theorised ways of being, doing and speaking, as a robust research methodology most capable of telling our stories through our own Māori lens.

n this situation report, we discuss ways to address current promotional processes that discriminate against Māori and Pacific academics in New Zealand universities. This report follows on from a paper that we published in 2020 showing that Māori and Pacific academics, compared with non-Māori non-Pacific male academics, were significantly less likely to be promoted to the professoriate (associate professor, professor) and earn less, over a 15-year period. These gaps are not explained by research performance (measured by Performance Based Research Fund scores), age or field (e.g., science).

Recent years have been extraordinary for race issues in Aotearoa. The Christchurch mosque shootings in March 2019 shattered long-held illusions of New Zealand exceptionalism; Islamophobia increased following the attacks; an increase in racialised abuse of Asian people followed the outbreak of COVID-19; the Black Lives Matter movement in the United States provided a platform for discussing anti-Black racism and white supremacy in Aotearoa; and in last year’s general election, many political parties campaigned on border security or restricting immigration.