Poipoia te kākano,kia puawai: resilience and resistance in the lives of Māori adoptees

An alternative framing

In this article, we draw on the concepts of resilience and resistance to support a more constructive, de-pathologising orientation. These concepts provide a helpful frame from which to explore the extraordinary characteristics that Māori adoptees cultivate in order to cope, survive or navigate the complexity of living as an adoptee. The risk remains, however, that even in a strengths-based frame, individualistic and psychologically oriented conceptualisations of resilience perpetuate pathologisation, by holding adopted people responsible for their resilience or lack thereof. A socioecological conceptualisation is therefore important; seeing people’s resilience as a product of the intersubjective spaces in which they are embedded (Boulton & Gifford, 2014) and the culmination of their access to resources. This stance relocates the responsibility for resilience to other actors, for example, families, schools, communities and systems (Ungar, 2005, as cited in Shean, 2015). An adopted person’s resilience therefore comprises not only personal agency but also physical and social ecology, including personal attachments and structural supports. It also involves culture, conceptualised here as the everyday practices through which individuals and groups manifest shared values, beliefs, language and customs. Furthermore, it is important to recognise that resilience may change over the adoption trajectory and the adopted person’s life-course, with the flux of circumstances, skills, resources and environment (Whatman & Harvey, 2020).

Despite arguments by Usher et al. (2021) that resilience and resistance are western concepts, Penehira et al. (2014) assert their utility, as well as their differences, in an Indigenous context. Recognising the validity of both in achieving positive outcomes in the face of historic and ongoing marginalisation, Penehira et al. propose a continuum in which opposing notions of acceptance–resistance, reactive–proactive, survival–flourishing, individual–collective and state control–self-determining characterise resilience compared with resistance (Table 1).

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Table 1.

Dimensions of resilience and resistance (drawn from Penehira et al., 2014).

	Resilience	Resistance
Acceptance–resistance	Acceptance, and consequently being responsible for being marginalised and dispossessed	Actively challenging the negative forces, including oppressive social, political and economic conditions
Reactive–proactive	Responding to acute risk, threat or harm	Achieving long-term change that reduces risk and is sustainable
Survival–flourishment	Continuing to live or exist, in spite of adversity	Communities achieving their aspirations and reaching their full potential. Success across social, financial, political and spiritual domains
Individual—collective	Individuality is acceptable but not at the cost of wider whānau (extended Māori family) or communities	Address the needs of iwi (tribe), hapū (subtribe) and whānau and other contemporary Māori groupings
State control–self-determination	Participating in state-controlled initiatives as minority population	Recapturing self-governance and leadership, reclamative approach

Both practices of resilience and resistance, and the various ways of enacting them, are necessary and valid at different times (Penehira et al., 2014), during an adoptee’s life. The continuum aligns with the Māori adoptee’s transition through various stages of the adoption trajectory—relinquishment and growing up in the adoptive family, search and contact or reunion, and post-reunion. This transition is in part developmental, but also significantly influenced by an adoptee’s ecology; there is no singular, linear or correct course with and through the lived effects of adoption. While this article explicitly resists the construction of the pathological adopted subjects, this may not be a position taken up by all Māori adoptees. While some adoptees exemplify resistance through publicly defying or opposing adoption policies, a large majority will not. However, they may well resist or challenge adoption microaggressions, the conscious and unconscious verbal or behavioural acts that denigrate adoptees and cause harm due to prevailing bio-normative discourse (Baden, 2016) encountered in everyday life. Exploring resilience and resistance in Māori adoptees’ narratives provides the opportunity to re-frame and re-story, which in itself is part of reclaiming and realising resistance:

Indigenous [adopted] peoples stand to benefit when we engage with our own understandings of resilience, on our own terms, and when we can, using our own languages. The benefits for Indigenous [adopted] peoples comes from using concepts that emerge from our own realities, including our own struggles, and which fit our own already-present bodies of knowledge. (Penehira et al., 2014, p. 107)

Navigating difference

A significant element of participants’ experiences of being adopted was that of being different. Participants talked about being different within their adoptive family, racially and in other ways, and also as part of a non-biologically constituted family. What resulted therefore was an amplified sense of difference, within and outside the adoptive family unit. In terms of within family differences, participants talked about psychological and characteristic differences, such as temperament and humour, where conflict would arise, or differences constructed disconnection. Most noted were the external differences. For example, for many, their physical features provided an obvious indicator that they were Māori (Durie, 2001; Te Huia, 2015), and for 14 participants that was in stark contrast to their Pākehā adoptive parents.

While all children are socialised by their immediate families and their social context (Stoddart et al., 2021), for children living as if born to an adoptive family who look, sound and act differently to them, there are specific consequences. On the one hand, participants were very aware that they were distinct from their adoptive family members, but, on the other hand, they became part of their families, assimilated into their family culture and worldview. What this meant was that participants frequently developed an internal image of themselves that differed from their external appearance. Some participants indicated they forgot they had brown skin. Despite being visibly Māori, Norm saw himself as Pākehā, saying “I mean because I can’t see myself, I think I’m a white guy.” This finding was supported by participants in Ahuriri-Driscoll’s (2020) research, who also failed to recognise themselves as Māori until their image in a mirror or adoptive family photographs reminded them otherwise. Terry mentioned noticing other forms of physical difference in a photo, “you see a family photo . . . there’s all the kids and there’s me, standing way up here above everyone.” While integrating within the adoptive family is important developmentally and an adaptive mechanism, the disconnection between internal experience and external appearance can be angst-inducing, disconcerting, and generate identity diffusion (Barn & Mansuri, 2019), additional challenges which adoptees need to traverse.

Adoptive families varied in their capacity to support their adopted children through this challenge. Mavis was told by her adoptive family she had “brown paint tipped” on her, connoting a spoiled appearance. Others insinuated an aversion to their adopted child’s brownness. For instance, Louise’s mother issued the following warning: “don’t go out in the sun too long darling, you’ll get too dark.” Off-hand comments such as these had the effect of devaluing participants’ ethnicities and ethnic origins. In response to the lack of physically matching adoptive family members, one participant described lathering themselves with soap to give the appearance of white skin.

Physical mismatching incited other forms of insensitivity from outside the family, such as when people would ask “who’s your real family?” or comments were made specifying and distinguishing adoptive kinship such as “oh, so this is his adopted son” (Terry). These were reminders of being without biological kinship and reinforced participants’ feelings of not belonging (Stoddart et al., 2021). To manage the distressing or embarrassing feelings triggered by such adoption microaggressions (Baden, 2016), some of the adoptees in this research engaged in protective coping strategies. For example, Sandra coped by seeking solid ground, which she found in activities that were “knowable”:

I always think that I’m not good enough, which is why I gravitated towards science. Here is something knowable and we can argue about these facts. Whether or not that’s true, it felt like a safe place to be.

For Sandra, subjects like maths or science enabled a sense of security because they involved a right or wrong response. Other participants talked about deflecting or ignoring harmful comments by staying silent, avoiding responding, or making a joke and being the good, adopted child. These findings are analogous to those from other adoption research (Ahuriri-Driscoll, 2020; Haenga-Collins, 2011; Hanna & McRoy, 2011; Hoksbergen, 1997).

For some participants, the intersection of adoptive identity and other minoritised identities made belonging exceedingly difficult. For example, Alan listed various identities that constitute who he is:

I knew that from a young age that I’m not like everyone else. I’m adopted; I’m brown and I’m queer though I didn’t even know what the words were in those days.

Being adopted was not the only minoritised identity that Alan needed to navigate, and his profound sense of difference and disconnection from both his adopted and birth families saw him living rough and becoming part of other displaced communities. Maintaining a distance from the prejudices and discrimination of mainstream communities, and finding other people and places which felt safe, was an important means of resistance and self-protection (Te Huia, 2015).

Navigating racial and ethnic identity

A key task of the Māori adoptee is to navigate racial and ethnic identity, and for many, that involves making sense of this in a Pākehā family context (Ahuriri-Driscoll, 2020; Haenga-Collins, 2011; Newman, 2011; West, 2012). As noted in the examples above, many Pākehā families in the era of closed adoption were ill equipped to support their adopted children in developing a positive conceptualisation of being Māori. Raised as Pākehā and without knowledge or connection to their Māori heritage meant that outside the family participants found they were not able to meet the expectations of others and of their socially assigned ethnicity (Houkamau & Sibley, 2015). For Louise and Serena, this summoned a sense of displacement:

My upbringing was pretty good, but it was very white, very Pākehā-fied. And I can just remember as a young child at school being confused about that in terms of Māori kids in a class and where did I fit in. (Louise)

If we go back to the adoption like some experiences that I’ve had I don’t fit in the Pākehā world. I’m too brown. I don’t fit in the Māori world. (Serena)

Both Louise and Serena note the difficulty of finding their place in relation to other Māori, and in the Māori world, as a result of their very Pākehā upbringings. As Louise notes, this is separate or distinct from having a good or loving upbringing and perhaps forming good adoptive attachments.

A much less common circumstance for Māori adoptees in the closed adoption period was being adopted into families where one or both parents were Māori. However, this was the case for seven participants in this research. The assumption is often made that not only is the fiction of as if born to easier to uphold in a same-race family, but that racial and ethnic identity development will be better supported. Having a Māori adoptive parent can mean that aspects of being Māori are lived and felt growing up, providing scaffolding to a more secure Māori identity, and connection to the Māori world (Ahuriri-Driscoll, 2020). In this research, Rachel spoke of being fortunate to learn Māori customs, such as children being at the core of relational values. For Teresa having both Pākehā and Māori socialisation was also positive, something of a buffer to some of the ill effects of being raised a transracial adoptee. Teresa storied how this meant she got to experience both worlds:

Mum and Dad had two different ways of living, because she is Pākehā and Dad is Māori and, although he didn’t kōrero Māori (speak Māori language), and didn’t encourage it for me and my siblings . . . . We were blessed to have our kuia (grandmother) live with us, plus our nanna, who is my mum’s grandmother. So, we had the lollies and all the cakes, and all the yummy Pākehā food she would bake. And then we had the rotten corn and the tin hanging in the rākau (tree), and all of that stuff with Nanny. And Dad always took us home—our marae (whānau land)—for whatever occasion was going on.

Teresa also noted she had a close bond with her Māori adoptive dad—he was her dad. Being adopted into a Māori family, however, did not guarantee protection from harms associated with adoption or necessarily generate a greater sense of belonging. Craig rationalised rejection by his wider Māori adoptive whānau as the significance of bloodlines:

My [adoptive] mother’s family didn’t like the idea that both myself and [my sibling] were adopted into the family because of my [adoptive] mother’s line—she was [related] to the Māori Queen; they come from quite a high-ranking family.

Not being able to succeed to land due to not being biological kin was also noted in other participants’ narratives. One family member, Natalie, reported that her Māori grandfather never accepted her brother because he was adopted. Perkins (nēe Devonshire) (2009) also showcased Māori adoptees being denied their rightful place in their adoptive Māori whānau on the basis that they did not share the same whakapapa. In this study, Craig expressed feeling more heartbroken by being rejected within a Māori context, where discourses of collectiveness imply inclusion. Craig protected himself from these forms of exclusion by living overseas for many years.

While overseas, Craig was able to celebrate his Māoritanga (Māori culture, practices and beliefs) and develop a strong cultural identity by taking a leadership role in kapa haka (Māori song and dance) and other community-based activities. These activities enabled him, as with others in this study, to benefit from belonging to Māori communities that were not based on essentialist blood lines or tribal connections. Hura (2015) recognises that Māori living overseas often experience freedom and autonomy because colonial racism is less obvious or felt. It also follows that with the frequent reminders of tenuous whakapapa links at home (Newman, 2011), taking up a Māori identity overseas could be safer.

For some, being adopted into a Māori family constituted a stronger Māori identity and offered a form of resilience to the harmful effects of adoption. Houkamau and Sibley (2015) have argued that traversing both Pākehā and Māori identities can be advantageous because of negative stereotypes and racism directed at Māori. However, for others in this research, having a Māori adoptive family was a painful reminder of their disrupted whakapapa ties and they were subject to other adoption microaggressions, nonetheless. Being raised in a bicultural adoptive family certainly did not preclude adoptees from seeking out their original kin.

Seeking a place to stand

Tūrangawaewae, the deep roots that secure a place to stand (Leuluai, 2018; Pere, 1997) and underpin one’s strength and identity (Groot et al., 2018), is an important tenet of Māori well-being. Tūrangawaewae has been traditionally conceptualised as the biological connections through whakapapa or ancestry to specific sites or places. For Māori adoptees seeking to restore or repair the fissures of a disrupted whakapapa after being adopted, seeking knowledge of whakapapa is central to developing a sense of tūrangawaewae. Adoptees in this research narrated various motivations to search for their Māori birth family; Maree expressed a strong desire to (re)connect in the hope that it would enable her to feel a “little bit more grounded as to who I am.” Likewise, Jenni was seeking a sense of wholeness from identifying her Māori birth father.

The Adult Adoption Information Act 1985 legislated access to an original birth certificate, which held the name(s) of the birth parent(s), for adoptees over the age of 20 years. Mostly birth mothers’ names were only included on the original birth certificates, thus they became the gatekeepers of paternal identities (Griffith, 1991). If trauma or harm surrounded conception, birth mothers might withhold paternal information. The search for the birth family also involved overcoming barriers, such as adoptive family members’ disapproval about searching, long searches of electoral roles or other documents in the attempt to locate the birth mother or approaching strangers for knowledge (Ahuriri-Driscoll, 2020; Blake, 2013; Fergusson & Horwood, 1998). Some participants reported that they needed to be emotionally and psychologically prepared to seek out and cope with any reunion relationship dynamics.

Bridget talked about needing to be ready to reconnect. As a child Bridget talked about feeling “profoundly different” to her adoptive parents, even adrift. During her adolescence, these feelings intensified, resulting in her spending several months in a residential mental health unit. While there, she was offered, but declined the opportunity to connect with her family of origin. Bridget knew that at that time, she was not the person she wanted her biological mother to meet. At age 19, Bridget traced her birth mother through the electoral roll and through her was able to connect with her Māori father and their family. Restoring her whakapapa relationships meant that over time Bridget and her sons have found their tūrangawaewae, a secure place to stand in the Māori world, and albeit tenuous at times, with that came the ability to heal.

Reunion and knowledge of whakapapa also gave participants access to a name. Bridget took up her Māori surname to publicly claim and locate herself within her whakapapa. She did this while maintaining her adoptive surname so that both kinship groups were recognised, although this choice was contested by her Pākehā birth mother, who questioned the exclusion of her Pākehā birth family name. For Rachel knowing a birth name was “cool” and gave her a sense of being wanted:

Finding out my birth name was kind of cool. Even in the name, it felt like I was wanted . . . and given my father’s surname and I know a lot of children weren’t. So even that ownership in the name. Knowing that was cool, it felt like an act of love.

Names are significant as a representation of connecting or connection, they are passed onto the next generation to ensure continuity of whakapapa (Mead, 2016). Haenga-Collins (2019) asserts that taking up a birth family name or renaming is a way to resist the fiction of being as if born to a family. Names signify connections and were important to those who could reunite with them; however, some of the participants in this study noted that having a name or whakapapa did not necessarily make up for the loss of lifelong relationships with their family of origin.

Some in this study could not experience reunions with their Māori parent because they were unknown or had died, which was devastating. Sadly, Mavis was too late, as potential access to whakapapa knowledge had died with her birth mother, and later, an associate. For those in Mavis’ position, the inability to learn about whakapapa precludes grounding, rooting or anchoring, and forces them to exist without knowledge of ethnicity. This is painful to navigate and reinforces the sense of psychic homelessness that growing up without knowledge of birth origins can produce (Newman, 2012). It can also be a significant barrier to claiming a Māori identity (McIntosh, 2005). For some participants, tūrangawaewae was instead generated through alternative means—for instance, Mavis and Jenni talked about learning te reo Māori (Māori language) and joining pan-tribal groups despite not being able to verify their whakapapa. These constitute contemporary ways to belong and be Māori (Groot et al., 2018).

Finding ways to belong in the Māori world

The routes that Māori adoptees take to return back to their roots are complicated by the fact of their enculturation outside of whānau, and often, Māori communities. Participants in this research spoke about receiving tā moko (traditional Māori tattoo), learning to weave, visiting marae, learning Māori customs and traditions and singing waiata (songs); all activities that brought them a sense of belonging and joy. Such activities are not necessarily reliant on knowledge of whakapapa, but represent and provide access to a Māori identity (McLachlan et al., 2021). The two predominant ways of expressing their Māori identities were through the natural environment and speaking te reo Māori.

Miranda felt an affinity with the natural environment, and recognising the Māori concept of land and landmarks as ancestors, perceived this connection as part of her being Māori:

The Māori side has always been something I’ve identified with . . . I have always felt an identification with the land . . . I instantly think of just nature . . . just the water and stuff. It’s like that ancestor’s thing as well, being connected. I love the way that the past is so relevant in the now . . . I don’t really know what it means to be Māori.

Ahuriri-Driscoll (2020) also found expressions of “eco-indigeneity” in several of her participants’ narratives, part of their articulation of the whakapapa-whenua (of and belonging to land) connection, and an assertion of positive Indigenous agency (p. 193). However, while Miranda found the natural world an important connector, she held lingering doubts about her understanding of being Māori. This gives the sense of being adopted as always and intractably compromising an authentic Māori being.

Learning te reo Māori was particularly salient among many participants, owing to its recognised significance as an indicator of Māori cultural identity, and its utility in validating Māori identity claims (Durie, 2001; Te Huia, 2020). Teresa recounted how language was a conduit to tikanga (custom, practices) and culture:

Learning te reo Māori, along with that comes tikanga, comes the knowledge of culture, comes a whole lot of beautiful things; connection, whakawhanaungatanga (relating to others), acceptance of Māori that I’ve met while learning. That just allows me to be me and be adopted.

Teresa was careful to emphasise that one is not “less” Māori without knowledge of te reo Māori. However, as she explained, the interrelationship of te reo Māori and tikanga means that understanding of the language enables access to Māori knowledge in a deeper way:

Being Māori doesn’t just mean if you’re unable to kōrero Māori you are Māori any less. But missing out on that, you’re missing out on a whole lot, when you’re not immersed in the beauty of what our [te] reo Māori holds. Whānau means more than just family. Hapū means more than just being pregnant. All of those have another story to them.

Akin to Teresa, Jason expressly articulated the healing value of connecting to cultural activities when he said, “I do things [to reconnect to te ao Māori (Māori world)] because I get sick of being in pain to be honest.” These activities included spending time in Māori spaces such as marae and connecting to land. It was apparent that for Jason, the resulting sense of tūrangawaewae helped ease the trauma of dislocation.

Māori who are adopted pursue connection to their whakapapa or to things Māori at different times in their lives. For instance, Norm moved with his partner and children to a small town proximal to his marae, enabling him and his children to (re)connect:

I’ve gravitated back to reconnect into the Māori culture probably in the last five years. Part of that is moving to a small town so it was quite cool to go back there by my marae, we want to get our kids into kōhanga (Māori language immersion pre-school).

Norm was drawn to Māoritanga for himself but also his children. Other adoptees in this research also spoke of children being the catalyst to (re)connect to things Māori; their love, care and desire to safeguard their children and grandchildren from experiences of psychic homelessness and disconnection was a significant driver.