‘Knowing where you’ve come from’: Ruptures and continuities of time and kinship in narratives of adoption reunions

Abstract

This article, based on research in Scotland, discusses reunions between adults who have been adopted in infancy, and their birth kin. Although the distinction between ‘biological’ and ‘social’ kinship, which is central to the anthropological analysis of kinship, is clearly relevant to experiences of reunions, as it is to adoption more generally, this analytic focus is disrupted by issues of temporality, biographical completion, and memory, which both motivate and are raised by reunions. Narratives about adoption reunions can be used to illuminate the connections between these different themes. I explore the implications of these both for experiences of kinship in the West more generally and for the anthropological analysis of kinship.

Redefining Family Relationships Following Adoption: Adoptive Parents' Perspectives on the Changing Nature of Kinship between Adoptees and Birth Relatives

“…This is a process that occurs not only in the immediate months following an adoption when professionals are more closely involved, but is largely determined by the ongoing efforts and negotiations that take place throughout the adoptees" childhood and into adulthood. The importance of "kinship time" has been highlighted by Carsten (2000) in her study of relationships following reunions between adult adoptees and birth relatives involved in confidential adoptions. The term refers to the sense of continuity of past, present and future that is a feature of kin relations and everyday kinship practices, a continuity that, Carsten suggests, is missing and difficult to regain for adoptees and birth relatives separated through confidential adoption.…”

The Role of 'Family Practices' and 'Displays of Family' in the Creation of Adoptive Kinship

“…Openness raises significant questions about the meaning of kinship within contemporary adoptive families (Modell, 1994). It unsettles traditional Western cultural assumptions about the primacy of biological connectedness and the designation of kinship as either fictive or real (Carsten, 2000). It also renders unsustainable the social expectation that we must belong to this family or that, not this family and that (Rosnati, 2005).…”

Imagining the expected baby: kinship, beauty and race in Rio de Janeiro

“…Os traços imaginados para o bebê eram sempre características físicas que eram "puxadas" de suas famílias e das de seus maridos. Se a semelhança física pode ser considerada um modo de visualizar conexões entre as pessoas (Carsten 2000b;Cussins 1998;Nordqvist 2010), sua projeção parecia também criar continuidade entre o bebê, seus pais e suas redes de parentesco.…”

“…Assim, a continuidade com as gerações anteriores era sempre imaginada, mas colocava-se como distinta, recebendo acentuações diversas. Portanto, busco problematizar a relação entre semelhança física e descendência, como outros autores (Cannell 2011;Carsten 2000b;Cussins 1998;Nordqvist 2010), mostrando que as distinções de classe social, raça e etnicidade presentes na sociedade brasileira são mobilizadas juntamente com os pesos ontológicos dos laços de parentesco no processo de construir vínculos para o bebê.…”

“…Ao contrário do sangue, porém, a semelhança física é frequentemente tomada como um modo de visualizar conexões (Cannell 2011;Carsten 2000b;Cussins 1998;Nordqvist 2010). Nordqvist comenta que "quando um bebê nasce, seu corpo é visto como constituindo um laço de identidade social entre ele / a e sua família" (2010: 1132; minha tradução).…”