Research sheds new light on pusiaki - Tongan adoption

Pacific Studies doctoral candidate Amanda SullivanLee of Waipapa Taumata Rau, University of Auckland is reimagining Indigenous Tongan adoption (pusiaki) through research grounded in Pacific storywork, talanoa and oral history.

Amanda's PhD, Reclaiming Connection: Indigenous Tongan Adoption (Pusiaki) in Historical Perspective, maps the history and contemporary implications of pusiaki, employing Indigenous storywork, talanoa and oral history alongside archival research.

Originally from San Francisco, her research carries the weight of lived experience and the discipline of historical inquiry, while restoring relational care to the heart of adoption narratives across the Moana.

Examined as a relational, multilayered kinship system predating missionary contact and differing fundamentally from Western legal adoption; rather than a one time transfer, pusiaki historically sustained openness, movement and continued ties between birth and adoptive families. Children were kept connected to lineage, land and extended kin.

“Talking about adoption is intellectually challenging -  and it’s also emotionally challenging,” says Amanda. “As an adopted Pacific person raised outside the Pacific, returning to Indigenous frameworks has been both rigorous and healing."

Pacific History Association conference

Presenting at the Pacific History Association conference in Sāmoa last December, Amanda joined a cohort of Pacific PhD researchers who centre Indigenous knowledge holders and address archival silences by working with multiple knowledge forms: storywork, talanoa, community oral histories and archival sources in conversation.

This multi method approach reflects the scholarship of Linda Tuhiwai Smith, Tui Atua Tupua Tamasese Ta‘isi Efi, Sione Latukefu, Okusitino Mahina, Albert Wendt and others who insist that Pacific history must be ‘with us, not about us’ says Amanda.

“Our histories live in the fale, in families and across the vā,” she notes. “Pusiaki endures because it’s relational, flexible and held by community - that persistence itself is Indigenous resilience and resistance.”

The conference offered powerful reminders of how deeply Pacific families understand and practice kinship care. During Amanda's presentation the audience were highly responsive and she recalls a colleague describing how he was raised by aunts and uncles; moving effortlessly between homes -  a pattern so common that he didn't know who his biological parents were until a teacher told him in primary school.

“Adoption calls into conversation your identity, relationships, your family,” Amanda says. “It can bring people together immediately.”

She’s currently working in Special Collections with fragile manuscripts (including the Elizabeth Bott Spillius field notes and papers) and in talanoa with Tongan knowledge holders. The research situates pusiaki alongside wider Pacific kinship practices, while acknowledging the harm created by colonial ‘closed’ adoption regimes that severed whakapapa ties - impacts that continue to reverberate for Māori and Pacific families.

Colonial ruptures and long-term impacts

While Pacific adoption systems foster connection, Amanda notes that colonial adoption policies introduced in the 20th century created harmful disruptions, particularly across Māori communities. She references work presented at the conference by Dr. Erica Newman of Otago on “closed stranger adoption,” where Māori children adopted into Pākehā homes lost permanent ties to whakapapa - a rupture still impacting descendants today.

She sees parallels with how state systems continue to clash with Indigenous understandings of kinship. Reclaiming Indigenous adoption practices is essential for healing and preventing these ruptured relationships.

“Even when you feel alone, you’re part of a long, storied history,” she reminds adopted Pacific people. “Our ancestors carried these practices into the present.”

The work has prompted immediate recognition from Pacific communities, students and adoptees who share their own stories of kinship care and movement between households. Amanda offers insight for adoptees and adoptive families:

For adopted Pacific people: “You are not alone; your experience sits within a long Pacific history. Reconnection is part of a collective story.”

For adoptive families: “Make room for questions and pain without asking the adoptee to carry adult emotions. Honour ties to biological kin as part of their well-being.”

Now in the writing stage, Amanda is working toward thesis submission within the year. While the topic is heavy, she says Pacific spaces are sustaining: “Being in the Moana helped me let go of the heaviness. Even when studying adoption - which can bring loneliness - I’m held by land, ocean and community.”