Hauora Kotahitanga. Maori health experiences as models for co-operative co-existence between indigenous and non-indigenous peoples.

Abstract

The complexities for Maori 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-Maori, are part of the broader phenomenon of contemporary indigenous knowledge based developments. This thesis examines the relationships forming between the worlds of Maori and non-Maori peoples through hauora Maori. The purpose of this study is to examine Maori 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 coexistence) between indigenous and non-indigenous peoples. The five hauora Maori organisations studied were created during the 1990s to implement matauranga (Maori knowledge) through tikanga (Maori methodologies), and were inclusive of non-Maori, 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 Maori 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. Kareretanga characterises and frames the experiences of hauora Maori practitioners, Maori and non-Maori, in developing and delivering hauora Maori. The matauranga of Maori 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 Maori 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 Maori and non- Maori peoples; based on living together differently through indigeneity-based hauora Maori organisations. The research concluded that ensuring the inclusion of indigenous knowledge in contemporary health developments not only underpins indigenous sustainability 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.