This paper is about the adoption of a novel way of using documentary analysis in order to be culturally responsive in a research setting. It describes an original method, located in an actual empirical study in a wānanga, that meshed the analysis of documents with a group hui through a bricolage approach. To support a Māori kaupapa, the researcher wished to incorporate values of participation and collaboration, thus overturning the traditional values of simplicity, passivity and individuality that are the purported advantages of documentary analysis.