Vicarious and post‐memory practices in adopting families: The re‐production of the past through photography and narrative

Abstract

In this paper, we explore how adoptive parents manage and order visual information relating to their adoptive child's birth or foster family. More specifically, our task is to make sense of the ways in which the memories that children have of their past families are (re)constructed and managed within the context of present adoptive parental concerns. Life story books have become a dominant way in which narratives of the child's past family are formed. The aim of this book is to provide the child with relevant information, objects, possessions and images of the past and to create a coherent narrative between the past and the present. Parents are encouraged to make use of visual images, consisting mainly of photographs of birth families and foster carers to order the autobiography of the child. To date, there is no research that has examined how the process is experienced by parents and children. In order to examine how parents made use of visual information in particular, we carried out two focus groups with adoptive parents who participated in an adoption agency support group. A social remembering approach informed the questions asked, and a discursive analysis of the data was developed. The main analytical focus in this paper is on how photographs, objects and places serve as active participants in the production of the adoptive children's memory.

The Power of Things

“…However, their very absence can demand attention and be effective. This need not result in lost opportunities but can encourage reflection on the absent object and on the research process (Brookfield et al 2008;Frith & Harcourt 2007;Hodgetts et al 2007b).…”

“…I've even asked friends to get rid of their photos of me. [Ismene] Besides destroying evidence there were also times when photographs were not taken or not kept (Brookfield, Brown & Reavey 2008;Hodgetts, Chamberlain & Radley 2007b). These lacks of materiality worked to expand the narrative as participants attempted to explain them.…”

Storytelling as Adaptive Collective Sensemaking

“…A wealth of literature across the social sciences indeed documented the collective sensemaking function of storytelling, in both small and large groups. For example, research on small groups such as families suggested it is possible to re‐story problematic life events that may have disrupted shared systems of belief by narrating them together (Brookfield, Brown, & Reavey, ; Koenig Kellas & Trees, ; Monk, ). Sensemaking in family remembering is enabled by members adopting different roles.…”

Storytelling as adaptive collective sensemaking

“…A wealth of literature across the social sciences indeed documented the collective sensemaking function of storytelling, in both small and large groups. For example, research on small groups such as families suggested it is possible to re-story problematic life events that may have disrupted shared systems of belief by narrating them together (Brookfield, Brown, & Reavey, 2008;Koenig Kellas & Trees, 2006;Monk, 1997). Sensemaking in family remembering is enabled by members adopting different roles.…”