The paradoxes of closed stranger adoption in Aotearoa New Zealand

Ahuriri-Driscoll, Annabel

The paradoxes of closed stranger adoption in Aotearoa New Zealand Annabel Ahuriri-Driscoll, Denise Blake and Alison Dixon - Taylor & Francis, 2023 - Adoption Quarterly .

Adoption Quarterly, 2023, First published, 4 January 2023

Transracial adoptees continually navigate the paradoxes of adoption, which arise in bio-normative and racialized contexts. “Being-adopted-and-Māori” was explored with 15 Māori adult adoptees. Hermeneutic phenomenological analysis revealed experiences of adoptive and racial “differentness,” centered around four key paradoxes: “as if born to”; the lived experience of transracial adoption; post-reunion biological kinship; and whaka-papa. Examining these paradoxes elucidated the discursive basis of lived and felt contradictions and ambivalence, as well as otherness and exclusion. Māori adoptee identities are considered paradoxical precisely because they disobey hegemonic discourses. Their experiences tell us how dominant discourses of adoption and identity need to change. (Author's abstract). Record #7999


ADOPTION
Adoption Act 1955
COLONISATION
HISTORY
KŌRERO NEHE
MĀORI
RACISM
RANGAHAU MĀORI
TAIPŪWHENUATANGA
TE AO MĀORI
TUHINGA WHAKAPAE
WHAKAHĀWEA IWI
WHAKAPAPA
WHĀNGAI


NEW ZEALAND