A sustained national focus on improving youth mental health and wellbeing in Aotearoa is strongly indicated by current national prevalence statistics. Wellbeing is, however, complex and situated, as well as notoriously difficult to define and operationalise. To facilitate good lives for young people, we need to enrich our conceptualisations of what wellbeing means and how it unfolds for diverse rangatahi, in context. In this paper, we share findings from an in‐depth, collaborative qualitative research project exploring rangatahi hauora. A central purpose of our work has been to find ways to enliven and challenge existing discourse on youth wellbeing with the voices and perspectives of diverse young people. Drawing from open‐ended interviews conducted with 56 culturally diverse rangatahi (young people) aged 16–20 living in Tāmaki Makaurau (Auckland), we present a layered analysis of rangatahi's hauora narratives, framed around the concept of whakawhanaungatanga . Our analysis attends to the centrality of connection and relationships in rangatahi's talk and explores resonances and dissonances with other culturally available sources of knowledge about young people. Our paper concludes by briefly considering the implications of our analysis and their potential to advance and diversify existing understandings of rangatahi hauora in Aotearoa.

Access to culturally safe health services is a basic human right, however through the lasting effects of colonisation, oppression, and systemic racism, the individual and community health of Indigenous peoples in Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand have been severely impacted. The Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health and Cultural Safety Strategy of the Australian Health Practitioners Regulation Agency, and the Standards of Cultural Competence and Cultural Safety of the Optometrists and Dispensing Opticians Board of New Zealand, recognise the importance of access to safe health care for Aboriginal, Torres Strait Islander and Māori patients, which encompasses both clinical competency and cultural safety. Universities have an ongoing responsibility to ensure their learning and teaching activities result in graduates being able to provide culturally safe practice. This article highlights the emergence of culturally safe practices in the Australian and Aotearoa New Zealand optometry curricula over the last five years incorporating Indigenous ways of knowing, being and doing into the curricula, understanding the local Indigenous histories and contexts, the adoption of online cultural education modules, and clinical placement partnerships with local Indigenous communities. Whilst there is still much work to do to achieve the goal of graduating culturally safe optometrists, this paper focuses on features that enable or impede progress in the development of culturally safe practices within the optometry programmes to improve eye health equity for Indigenous recognise the diversity of Indigenous cultures across Australia and NZ.

The healthcare system is complex and challenging to virtually everyone but more so to those who are marginalised, impoverished, and isolated—all factors that exacerbate health literacy barriers. This article reports on an analysis of qualitative data collected for a kaupapa Māori evaluation of a Cardiovascular Disease Medications Health Literacy Intervention. The evaluation study involved a kaupapa Māori evaluation of the effectiveness of the intervention and the discussion of wider learnings in relation to health literacy interventions with Māori and other Indigenous communities. Findings are grouped into three key themes: Whakaaro, tūrangatira, and whanaungatanga. Whakaaro—fluidity of understanding—refers to the importance of maintaining patient medication knowledge and nurturing relationships between patients and health professionals. Tūrangatira—presence—refers to changes in participation practices between patients and health professionals, as well as the limitations and outcomes of the intervention approach. Whanaungatanga—building relationships—covers the intervention structure and design and the role of the research nurse. This study highlighted that the responsibility for improving health literacy lies with everybody in making substantial systemic change. In this intervention, the focus of responsibility for building health literacy skills in patients and whānau (family) sat with front-line health professionals.

This paper explores decolonising health literacy by reclaiming historical practices shared by Māori to develop a kaupapa Māori health literacy evaluation framework. The work is based on a research innovation within a Primary Health Organisation – Ngāti Porou Hauora – that defines health literacy within the context of the community. This research promotes reclamation of health literacy as a space for Māori to be ourselves; a space that is negotiated, adaptive, and shaped by people, whānau (family group) and communities. The framework attempts to reflect participants’ voices, perceptions, understandings and experiences. Its design was informed by a kaupapa Māori praxis, and aspires to co-ownership, mutually beneficial outcomes and shared power through prioritising participants’ voices to shape and develop the criteria for determining the goals and action areas related to health literacy. The framework includes overall goals and action areas for practicing effective health literacy at individual, whānau, health professional, intervention/programme, and organisational levels. This paper is an example of how Māori can promote and practice health literacy in the context of our histories, honouring a pathway of transformation through decolonising methods.

Rangatahi described ‘hāpai te hauora’ as ‘breathing your ancestors into life’. This paper explores the ways rangatahi Māori make sense of and live ‘hāpai te hauora’ through sharing their stories of navigating wellbeing.Twenty rangatahi Māori (16–20 years) from diverse backgrounds living in Tāmaki Makaurau, Aotearoa (Auckland, New Zealand) were interviewed by Māori researchers. From the resulting rich and insightful data, short pūrākau (narratives) were analysed at a wānanga involving 34 rangatahi to further explore key findings and expressions of wellbeing through art, design and co-creation.Findings indicate that rangatahi Māori know and experience hauora as living shared values. They search for safe spaces, both human and environmental, to grow, challenge and express who they are and who they want to be. Distinctions were consistently made between their own lived culture and the dominant colonial culture. Rangatahi Māori described a yearning to be seen, heard and sovereign just as they are.

While much existing research investigates embodiment and body image in individualised terms, new research in youth studies takes a wider view. How are young people’s experiences of embodiment entangled with sociocultural and structural influences? How do young people come to develop a sense of embodied identity in contexts that teem with hostile and unattainable body ideals? How are possibilities for affirming and affirmative embodiment navigated by young people—especially those living outside prevailing appearance norms? In this paper, we engage with these questions, drawing insights from an in-depth, collaborative research project designed to understand what supports and constrains hauora and wellbeing for young people in Aotearoa (New Zealand). First, we analyse young people’s accounts thematically, identifying three prevailing systems of cultural privilege that regulate embodiment. These include processes of racialisation and gendering, as well as cisnormative, heteronormative, ableist and healthist logics. Second, we work closely with one young person’s interview, exploring how her narrative unsettles prevailing norms of appearance and embodiment. By spotlighting what young people themselves tell us about their bodies and embodied experiences, this paper demonstrates the value of an embodiment lens for youth and wellbeing studies.