Māori and well-being. Exploring the philosophical ground in health and mental health policy

For Māori worldviews to be authentically reflected in health policy and health system design requires more than the superficial inclusion of kupu Māori or Māori frameworks; it demands that Māori philosophies form part of the conceptual ground upon which health policy and health systems are built. This research, the culmination of a two-year postdoctoral project by Dr Kim Southey (Ngāti Porou, Ngāti Kuia, Ngāti Koata), explores how the dissonance between te ao Māori and Western worldviews has played out in our health system, diagnosing the dominant Western worldview’s persistent effects amidst recent health reform, and identifies the precursors for change.

A significant contribution of this research lies in the articulation of how language functions not merely as a communicative tool, but as a carrier of the agreements on the underlying philosophical and conceptual grounds upon which discourse is shared. Kim demonstrates that, despite the inclusion of the Māori language, the primary Western language environment dominates these philosophical and conceptual grounds, limiting the impact of Māori terms, and, therefore, challenges us to reconsider the language in current health policy.

This research includes a primary text analysing systemic policy discourse alongside a supplementary report investigating the operational impact of linguistic environments on health reform.

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