The complexities for Māori in creating health and disability organisations based on their traditional knowledge and practices, when the institutions and systems they are dealing with for health developments are non-Māori, are part of the broader phenomenon of contemporary indigenous knowledge based developments. This thesis examines the relationships forming between the worlds of Māori and non-Māori peoples through hauora Māori. The purpose of this study is to examine Māori experiences of the development and delivery of indigenous knowledge based hauora Maori models, and to consider these experiences conceptually as models for kotahitanga (co-operative co-existence) between indigenous and non-indigenous peoples.
The five hauora Maori organisations studied were created during the 1990s to implement matauranga (Māori knowledge) through tikanga (Māori methodologies), and were inclusive of non-Māori, both as service providers and service receivers. The experiences of the five case study organisations are considered within the historical, political, policy and health sectoral contexts that influence Māori health development.
The research methods are grounded in matauranga Maori through an approach called Kareretanga, developed for this study and based on traditional forms of knowledge gathering and dissemination. Kareretangacharacterises and frames the experiences of hauora Maori practitioners, Māori and non-Māori, in developing and delivering hauora Māori. The matauranga of Māori scholars guides the study methodology which focuses on three debates from the indigenous health development literature: indigeneity; constructive engagement between indigenous and non-indigenous peoples; and, matauranga for health developments.
The findings illustrate multiple hauora Māori initiatives for community development that are conceptualised as models for kotahitanga between indigenous and non-indigenous peoples. The experiences of the hauora Maori organisations studied have been conceptualised in this study as multiple examples of kotahitanga between Māori and non-Māori peoples; based on living together differently through indigeneity-based hauora Māori organisations.The research concluded that ensuring the inclusion of indigenous knowledge in contemporary health developments not only underpins indigenoussustainability and resilience, it also provides indigenous peoples with a platform to participate in national and global developments in ways that can build the sustainability and resilience of indigenous and non-indigenous peoples together.