Marion’s research findings provide insights into the following question: In what context do Aboriginal people need to be resilient?
What have Aboriginal people needed to survive from? According to all 16 participants of this study, they have needed to survive the impacts of colonialism and racism.
It is necessary to describe within this chapter the context of needing to be resilient. Each participant described circumstances and events that provide the reader with a clear understanding of the critical events that the participants rose above.
It is essential that some of the events prior to considering the characteristics of resilience are explained. These experiences of adversity, although not the same, were universally experienced by the participants and subsequently discussed by each participant in the interview.
What have Aboriginal people needed to survive from? According to all 16 participants of this study, they have needed to survive the impacts of colonialism and racism. These experiences have been broken down as:
- Experience surviving racism
- Surviving colonialism
- Experience of being taken away
- Too many funerals.
