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.

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.

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.

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 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.

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.

The removal of a Māori child in May 2019 led to widespread protest and the launch of four inquiries into the Ministry for Children, plus an urgent inquiry through the Waitangi Tribunal. Tamariki Māori are over-represented in the child welfare system, but the issues are not just about the system itself. The legacy of colonisation continues to have an impact, not just on individual whānau, but also on the loss of tikanga in relation to whānau. It is the tikanga of whānau that many protesters seek to protect.

This commentary explores the ways in which body sovereignty has been illustrated and supported in the sovereign space of Te Matatini (Ki Te Ao). It is suggested that the 2019 Te Matatini Ki Te Ao Kapa Haka Finals were a space that privileged Te Ao Māori and body sovereignty in multiple, intersecting ways. I propose that sovereign spaces such as Te Matatini provide an alternative illustration, discourse and narrative to current coloniality that restricts, limits and does not acknowledge body sovereignty.