Native American and Māori Youth: How Culture and Community Provide the Foundation of Resilience in the Face of Systemic Adversity

Multiple disciplines in the academy have begun to understand the value in Indigenous worldviews. To date, resilience literature and constructs of resilience have been largely dominated by Western, individual worldviews. Such notions of resilience have focused on personal qualities of “resilient youth” and are misaligned with an Indigenous worldview where relational factors, such as those within culture and community, provide the foundation of resilience. While there has been some shift in understanding in mainstream resilience literature to acknowledging wider social factors, this paper offers an additional critical appraisal of resilience constructs from an Indigenous perspective. We also discuss the impacts of the current constructs of resilience for Indigenous peoples and communities, namely the dismissal of Indigenous experiences, leading to two questions: who benefits from such definitions? And, should some acts of “resilience” be better viewed as active resistance? American Indian, Alaska Native, and Māori case examples are provided to illustrate such points, while also demonstrating how culture and community provide the foundation of resilience in the face of systemic adversity. We conclude that Indigenous understandings of resilience have much to teach mainstream research, and consequently, provide principles as potential guidance for both future work in Indigenous settings and to mainstream resilience science.