Journal article

Recent changes to health ethics oversight in New Zealand has presented a number of challenges for the way in which health and disability ethics committee (HDEC) members handle Treaty of Waitangi responsibilities. Informants suggest that indigenous research ethics has either virtually dropped off the table or taken a “cultural turn” in the sense that the meaning of consultation has been “trivialised”; however, this fate is not indicated uniformly across all HDECs.

Type-2 diabetes and other illnesses associated with a sedentary lifestyle have a high prevalence among Māori. While the application of knowledge from exercise physiology, a specific discipline of the health sciences, could be used to enhance Māori health aspirations, Māori-led research in this field is relatively uncommon. Exercise physiology seeks to understand physical performance and the relationships between fitness, body composition, health and illness. Rarely have the key tenets of exercise physiology been applied to Māori populations.

The high rates of indigenous peoples exposed to traumatic experiences are exacerbated by the affects of historical trauma passed from generation to generation. Research exploring the individual and collective impact of this phenomenon is growing internationally. Yet little is known about Māori practices that facilitate healing from historical trauma. This article aims to analyse the affects of this trauma on Māori by exploring them in the context of the growing body of international historical trauma research.