Sibley, CMuriwai, E2016-07-1820162016http://hdl.handle.net/2292/29480Māori, the indigenous peoples of Aotearoa (New Zealand), have the highest national smoking prevalence of any ethnic group. Decades of research has focused on understanding the underlying mechanisms of Māori smoking behaviour. Despite this research, smoking prevalence for Māori remains markedly high. This thesis explores Māori smoking behaviour through an analysis of Māori identity. Undertaking a Kaupapa Māori positioning, I present two studies with the intention of decolonising Māori smoking research and acknowledging Māori aspirations to reduce tobacco harms and become auahi kore (smoke free). In my first study I present a qualitative media analysis which investigates the representations of Māori who smoke in national media. This study highlighted four central themes; deficit-style representation, strengths-based representation, historical recognition and cultural dissociation. I found that a causal link between ‘being Māori’ and smoking is commonly implied through negative representations of Māori who smoke. However, evidence of an alternative narrative emerged which dissociated aspects of ‘being Māori’ from smoking behaviour. Building on these findings I present a second paper, which quantitatively tested speculated links between Māori identity and culture, as well as experiences with discrimination, with smoking status on a national sample of Māori (N = 557). This study used the Multi-Dimensional Model of Māori Identity and Cultural Engagement (MMM-ICE2) to test aspects of Māori identity. We found no evidence linking Māori identity and smoking with one exception through the measure of ‘Perceived Appearance’. This unexpected finding reflects on how other people’s external evaluations of Māori may influence their smoking behaviour. Together these studies show support for distinguishing Māori identity from Māori smoking behaviour. The results of these studies are perhaps best encapsulated by the novel kaupapa formed in this thesis; ‘Smoking, Not Our Tikanga’.Items in ResearchSpace are protected by copyright, with all rights reserved, unless otherwise indicated. Previously published items are made available in accordance with the copyright policy of the publisher.https://researchspace.auckland.ac.nz/docs/uoa-docs/rights.htmhttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/nz/ThesisCopyright: The Authorhttp://purl.org/eprint/accessRights/OpenAccessQ112926090