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‘Knowing where you’ve come from’: Ruptures and continuities of time and kinship in narratives of adoption reunions
Author(s) -
Carsten Janet
Publication year - 2000
Publication title -
journal of the royal anthropological institute
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.62
H-Index - 62
eISSN - 1467-9655
pISSN - 1359-0987
DOI - 10.1111/1467-9655.00040
Subject(s) - kinship , temporality , narrative , sociology , fictive kinship , gender studies , genealogy , anthropology , epistemology , history , linguistics , philosophy
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.