Whakapapa is the essence of health and well-being. Whakapapa is a tool, created by our tūpuna to frame our existence as Māori. By identifying the names of places and people, we create a timeline of locators of who we are, where we come from and where we exist today. The opportunity to “walk our pepeha” enables us to not only identify these places but also to engage with them, making the connection stronger. It is through whakapapa that we can identify who and where we come from; this is vital to identity and therefore to health and well-being. In this article we examine the experiences of rangatahi engaging with and learning about their whakapapa.

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.

Social networking sites (SNSs) have changed the ways in which we communicate and connect with others, forming new ways of communicating, building relationships, accessing information, and being self- expressive. While much of the literature around SNSs looks at social impacts, little research exists around Māori use of SNSs. Rangatahi Māori (rangatahi) are finding new ways of connecting and communicating through Facebook profi le pages and are faced with new challenges of online/offl ine variations and protocols that become blurred—particularly in online spaces.