Annabel Ahuriri-Driscoll, Sacha McMeeking, Byllie-Jean Zita, Maxine Graham, Aaron Hāpuku
Abstract
Deepening our understandings of both ‘cause and cure’ is at the heart of public health efforts to lift population wellbeing, and Indigenous people’s pursuit and realisation of self-determination. This focus is also central to social investment, the prevailing policy approach to social services provision in Aotearoa New Zealand. In the past four decades Māori have promulgated an array of concepts and models to facilitate recovery from the impacts of colonisation and racism, and set the conditions for Māori thriving and wellbeing. Kaupapa Māori has emerged as an orientation with dual structuralist and culturalist imperatives to achieve these high level outcomes. However, despite the widespread uptake and application of kaupapa Māori initiatives, the underlying causal mechanisms of transformation are yet to be fully elucidated. This is the focus of current research, the conceptual underpinnings of which are discussed in this article. In presenting the rationale for and early observations arising from our research, we contribute thinking which extends upon social and Indigenous determinants of health literature, and will valuably inform social investment policy and practice.
