This qualitative research examines Pākehā New Zealanders’ experiences in waka ama through in-depth interviews. The analysis reveals cultural identity negotiation and knowledge exchange processes as Pākehā paddlers develop bicultural identities through deepening connections within te ao Māori. For many, waka ama serves as a gateway to tikanga, te reo Māori, and community. Participants emphasised that meaningful engagement requires sustained, humble participation to avoid the risk of appropriation. Humility emerged as an orienting ethos enabling learning as cultural outsiders and fostering openness to discomfort, continuous learning, and recognition of knowledge limitations.

Pasifika youth are overrepresented in the criminal justice sector and, most worryingly, within violent offending statistics. Trends in violent offending behaviour show Pasifika youth have the highest rates across all ethnicities. However, there is a lack of interventions designed for Pasifika youth, with the absence most prominent in community-delivered programmes. This qualitative study facilitates an explorative talanoa with Pasifika probation officers. Thematic analysis of data-generated themes highlights the strength of culturally responsive practice and a desperate need for rehabilitation programmes available within the community.

Māui Tinei Ahi is an ancestor who achieved a number of remarkable things in his life—from fishing up lands, to slowing the sun, to sourcing fire, and much more. The fire pūrākau details Māui’s interaction with his great aunt, the Atua of Fire, Hinemahuika. It tells the narrative of Māui sourcing fire for humankind. While this pūrākau is well-known in Aotearoa New Zealand (and in other islands of Te Moananui a Kiwa), various kurahuna are often overlooked. Based on the author’s PhD thesis, this article provides an original retelling of part of the fire pūrākau.

In this general issue, MAI Journal Volume 15, Issue 1 presents a wide collection of Indigenous research and scholarship that foregrounds Māori and Pacific perspectives on resilience, wellbeing, and self-determination. This issue features 15 articles, four commentaries, and a book review exploring kaupapa such as Māori economies and kai sovereignty, Indigenous research ethics, health and housing inequities, education, and justice. Contributions span topics from whakapapa-based economic frameworks and māra-centred urban planning, to rangatahi voices, Māori workforce experiences, and Pacific health and financial wellbeing.

This commentary responds to the removal of the Kāinga Ora–Homes and Communities Sustaining Tenancies Framework (STF) by the National-led Coalition Government of Aotearoa New Zealand. We suggest that the ideologies informing the removal of the STF are grounded in a long history of colonial housing policies that have led successive governments to politicise Māori housing through punitive policies. Despite recent reports written about Māori housing by both the United Nations and the Waitangi Tribunal advocating for Māori housing as a fundamental human right, the removal of the STF provides an example of how guaranteed housing is treated as a privilege, as opposed to a right.

This commentary proposes that the decision to hold findings from te ao Māori and biomedicine in productive tension—rather than resolving them into a single integrated account—is not a methodological preference but a constitutional obligation grounded in the te reo text of Te Tiriti o Waitangi. Drawing on the ontological turn in research methodology and on recent Waitangi Tribunal findings, the commentary argues that the two texts of the Treaty/Tiriti constitute two different worlds of reality: the English-language version enacting a hierarchical transfer of sovereignty; the te reo text enacting complementary, coequal spheres of kāwanatanga and tino rangatiratanga.

Mātauranga Māori has been severely impacted by settler-colonial agendas; however, continued efforts by Māori have supported mātauranga revival. This article examines interviews with 10 māmā and their journeys to reclaim ancestral knowledges for their tamariki. Māmā described reclaiming ancestral practices, including birthing traditions, wairuatanga, tikanga Māori, te reo Māori, rongoā Māori, weaving and food cultivation. Drawing on a whakapapa approach and the Hautū Waka framework, thematic analysis revealed a journey into the unknown, guided by tohu and shaped by challenges and resilience.

This narrative review examines the intersection of gambling harms and stigma among Māori, Pacific peoples, Asian communities and youth in Aotearoa New Zealand. The literature shows that stigma is shaped less by individual behaviour than by structural factors such as colonisation, socio-economic inequities, migration pressures and the concentration of pokies in low-income communities. We identify how stigma is experienced within each population and how it influences help-seeking, highlighting the central role of identity, cultural obligations and collective wellbeing.

In 2010, the passing of the Electoral (Disqualification of Sentenced Prisoners) Amendment Act removed voting rights for all prisoners, regardless of sentence length. A decade later, prisoners serving sentences of less than three years were re-enfranchised. Research and public discourse have highlighted the disproportionate effects of prisoner disenfranchisement for Māori, given persistent overrepresentation of Māori in prison. However, less attention has focused on the specific effects of disenfranchisement for wāhine Māori in prison.

Sir Hirini Moko Mead’s Five Tests framework helps identify a te ao Māori response to contemporary challenges. One such issue that Mead confronted, more than two decades ago, was genetic modification. We applied Mead’s precedent test to a genetic technology under development in Aotearoa New Zealand called single-sex offspring selection (SSOS). Single-sex offspring selection aims to control rat populations that harm native species either by producing primarily male litters or, by rendering females infertile, through a gene drive.