Home > Research > Publications & Outputs > An auto-ethnographic account of interactional p...

Electronic data

  • 2018LEWIS.C.PhD.FINAL.

    Final published version, 2.71 MB, PDF document

    Available under license: CC BY-NC-ND: Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License

Text available via DOI:

View graph of relations

An auto-ethnographic account of interactional practices in adoptive family relationships.

Research output: Thesis › Doctoral Thesis

Unpublished
Publication date18/09/2019
Number of pages397
QualificationPhD
Awarding Institution
Supervisors/Advisors
Award date25/10/2018
Publisher
  • Lancaster University
<mark>Original language</mark>English

Abstract

This autoethnographic narrative explores the temporal, situated nature of interactions between myself as an adoptee with my adult adopted children as well as those between myself and my birth father and mother. Epiphanies experienced are further synthesised with evidence from 10 female adoptee/adopted mother participant’s in confirming kinship affinities. Selecting and blending analytic and evocative autoethnographic approaches is valuable for two reasons. Firstly, the processes of reflexive self-introspection, self-observation and dialogue with participants has resulted in expanding my understanding of how complex adoptive/birth kinship affinities ebb and flow. As a result, there is a critical connection between recognising, analysing and responding to kinship affinities and personal growth. Lying at the intersection of the self and other this study contributes to deepening insights around the gendered nature of fixed, sensory, negotiated and ethereal kinship affinities. So, informing our understanding of relationships in families generally and between adoptive parents and adoptees specifically.