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New research gathers nearly two decades of data, making it easier for the sport sector to see what has worked, where barriers remain, and what still needs to be understood.
Māori are the Indigenous Polynesian people of New Zealand – known in the Māori language as Aotearoa – and make up nearly 18% of the country’s population. Sport has long been a space for cultural expression and community connection, but has also operated through systems shaped by colonization.
That relationship between sport, culture and wellbeing has been explored through nearly two decades of research, from traditional Māori games and community health initiatives to netball, hockey, cricket and elite sport. But much of that research had previously been considered in isolation.
A new review published in the Journal of Sport for Development brings them into conversation with one another.
Tyson Huia and Jeremy Hapeta of the University of Canterbury examined nearly 20 years of research to understand what the evidence can collectively tell us about sport for social change within Māori communities. It is the first comprehensive review of its kind, giving people designing programs a way to build on previous successes and recognize barriers others have already encountered.
Seeing the patterns
Across the studies, three broad themes emerged: cultural revitalization and identity, challenges and barriers, and holistic wellbeing and community engagement.
Some research examined the revival of ngā taonga tākaro, traditional Māori games—including their use in schools—to help younger generations engage with their culture. Other studies explored Māori identity in sports including netball, Indigenous knowledge in health and physical activity programs. Some explored how Māori values, relationships and ways of working influenced team culture and experiences in rugby, hockey and cricket.
Cultural context had the greatest influence on the experience of sport itself. Programs grounded in Māori knowledge and practices could support cultural identity and continuity alongside participation and wellbeing. This approach went further than simply introducing cultural elements into a program whose underlying structure remained unchanged.
Looking beyond the participant
The review also highlights inequities in funding and governance, culturally misaligned policies and instances where Māori voices have been included symbolically without meaningful power or resources.
Rather than treating lower participation or poorer wellbeing outcomes as problems within Māori communities, Huia and Hapeta locate many of the barriers in the structures surrounding them. For sport organizations, participation cannot be separated from who designs a program, who makes decisions, whose knowledge is valued and who defines success.
Conventional measures such as participation numbers and short-term performance outcomes can miss what Māori communities may value most. Cultural identity, language, collective wellbeing and community control over knowledge do not always fit neatly within standard reporting frameworks or short funding cycles.
Building from what we already know
By gathering the research in one place, the review makes recurring findings easier to see. It also exposes where the academic record remains thin.
The authors acknowledge that their search focused largely on mainstream academic databases. It may therefore have missed scholarship held by iwi (tribal groups) and work published in journals grounded in Māori knowledge and principles. That reflects a flaw in academic systems and what they make available, not an absence of Māori knowledge.
The gaps point to where the field needs to go next: more long-term research, closer examination of Māori-led funding and governance models and greater attention to the experiences of Indigenous women.
Huia and Hapeta stress that future research should be conducted by and continue to be shaped by Māori communities themselves, from the questions it asks to the knowledge and outcomes it values.
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