Karanga rua, karanga maha: Maori with lived experience of disability self-determining their own identities

For Indigenous Maori in Aotearoa New Zealand, the impact of disability can be pervasive yet often invisible due to considerable gaps in the accuracy and interpretations of disability data and information for Maori. We present findings from a kaupapa Maori qualitative study that centres perspectives of Maori with lived experience of disability, exploring how they define and negotiate their identities within the context of health and wellbeing. Our findings emphasise how Western-centric constructs of 'disability' and related terms fail to align with te ao Maori perspectives. We discuss the notion of 'karanga rua, karanga maha' as a potential framework to understand how Maori with lived experience of disability conceptualise and express a plurality of identities within Maori collectives. Maori ways of being, knowing, relating and doing are vital to advancing understanding of the impacts of disability to address priorities and aspirations of Maori with lived experience of disability. There is a critical need for national level dialogue led by, with, and for Maori with lived experience of disability to define their collective identity, (re)claiming their own matauranga and ways of knowing, in concert with recognition and acknowledgement of their tangata whenua rights to full expression of tino rangatiratanga in their health and wellbeing.Glossary of Maori terms: aroha: love, compassion, empathy; hapu: kinship group, sub-tribe, sub-nation, to be pregnant; iwi: extended kinship group, tribe, nation, people, bone; ira: life principle; kaitiakitanga: guardianship; kanohi ki te kanohi: face-to-face; kapa haka: traditional Maori performing group; kapo Maori: Maori with visual impairment, who are blind or deafblind; karanga: call or chant; karanga maha: person related through more than two lines of decent; karanga rua: someone related through two different lines, standing in a double relationship; 'karanga rua, karanga maha': a proposed framework for conceptualising Maori Disability identity - in reference to the integrated plurality of a person having two (rua) or many (maha) callings or intersectionally relational elements; kaumatua: elders; kaupapa Maori: Maori agenda, Maori principles, Maori ideology - a philosophical doctrine, incorporating the knowledge, skills, attitudes and values of Maori society; koro: elderly man, grandfather, term of address to an older man; kuia: elderly woman, grandmother, female elder; mana: spiritually sanctioned or endorsed influence, power and authority; manuhiri: visitor, guest; Maori: Indigenous Peoples of New Zealand; marae: courtyard, the open area in front of the wharenui, where formal greetings and discussions take place. Also used to include the complex of buildings; matauranga: knowledge, wisdom; mauiui: illness, disorder; moemoea: to have a dream, have a vision; ngati Turi: Maori Deaf; Pakeha: foreign, New Zealander of European descent; Papatuanuku: Earth Mother; pepi: baby, infant; rangatahi: younger generation; rangatira: chief/chieftainess; rohe: boundary, territory; rongoa: medicine, remedy; tamariki: children; tangata: people; tangata Turi: Maori Deaf; tangata whaikaha: an empowering umbrella term used to encompass people (of all ethnicities) with lived experience of disability (literally: people striving for enablement); tangata whaikaha Maori: an empowering umbrella term used to encompass Maori people with lived experience of disability (literally: people striving for enablement); tangata whenua: people born of the land - of the placenta and of the land where the people's ancestors have lived and where their placenta are buried; tapu: sacred; te ao Maori: the Maori world; te ao Pakeha: the Pakeha (foreign) world; te ao tawhito: the ancient world; te reo Maori: the Maori language; Te Tiriti o Waitangi: the Maori version of the Treaty of Waitangi; forms the foundation of the contractual relationship between two internationally recognised sovereign nations - Maori, as tangata whenua (people of the land), and the British Crown; tino rangatiratanga: absolute sovereignty, self-determination; turangawaewae: standing, place where one has the right to stand; tikanga Maori: customary system of values and practices developed over time and deeply embedded in the social context; tipuna/tupuna: ancestors; wairua: spirit, soul; wananga: to meet, discuss, deliberate, consider; Whaikaha: Te Reo Maori name of the Ministry of Disabled People; whakama: to be ashamed, shy, bashful, embarrassed; whakapapa: ancestry, genealogy, familial relationships; whanau: to be born, extended family, family group; whanau haua: a name for Maori with lived experience of disability; wharekai: dining hall; wharenui: meeting house, large house; whenua: placenta, ground, land.