Description
Book SynopsisThe stories in Narrating Estrangement: Autoethnographies of Writing Of(f) Family demonstrate the pain, anguish, and even relief felt by those who contemplate estranging or who are estranged, whether by choice or circumstance. Despite the social assumptions persisting about the everlasting nature of family relationships, when people make the complicated and often difficult decision to disconnect from family members, they experience shame, stigma, and isolation because of social pressures to maintain those relationships at all costs.
Each contributor uses the act of storytelling and the autoethnographic mode of scholarship and writing to find clarity in their individual, unique, and complex situations. Several authors' explorations restore some of what they have lost through estrangementsuch as a sense of identity, emotional health and well-being, and feelings of belongingdue to the breakdowns in social and family support systems meant to be unconditional and permanent. T
Trade Review
"This charged collection takes us into the silent and sometimes violent dynamics of families, manifesting the mercurial movements of trauma, love, and hope of making kin with other beings." -- Stacey Holman Jones, Monash University & Dan Harris, RMIT Australia
"A timely collection of research that is utterly compelling to read and invites rich reflections on the role of family in identity formation and negotiation, meaning, human development, cultural values, and trauma. Orbiting around estrangement as an important focus for family research, this diverse constellation of narratives will appeal to scholars in relational communication, family systems, social psychology, narrative research, and autoethnography." -- Elissa Foster, DePaul University, USA
"Breakdowns in family communication can be painful, baffling, traumatic. This rich volume offers new ways to think, feel, and story our way through the complexities of estrangement." -- Christopher N. Poulos, University of North Carolina-Greensboro, USA
"Engaging with their own and the contributors’ stories, Spinazola and Purnell show readers how to write brave narratives about family and estrangement—an excellent book that will greatly enrich research on family communication and autoethnography." -- Joyce L. Hocker, Clinical Psychologist and University of Montana (Ret.)
Table of ContentsInroduction Section One: Estrangement due to lingering effects of childhood neglect, abuse, or abandonment 1. Writing of, off, to, and from my mother: Moving forward, word by word 2. Estrangement: A Father/Son Love Story 3. A Series of @!?#@!? Events: A Journey to Mother-Daughter Estrangement Section Two: Estrangement due to family secrets, betrayal, or death 4. Complicating the experience of estranging from a sibling 5. Sister mine: Understanding family estrangement in siblings 6. Blood is thicker than water! 7. Traci(ng) Estrangement: Sisters, Secrets and Suicide Section Three: Estrangement resulting from the search for identity, belonging, or home 8. An Autoethnography of the Ongoing Impact of Parental Divorce and Estrangement 9. Too far out all my life…but not drowning 10. Our Real-Life Matilda Moment: Redefining and Finding Family Section Four: Estrangement initiated by another and out of our hands 11. Writing of(f) family: Sarah’s family hand-me-downs 12. My Mum is a Dreamer: Losing Family but Learning to Love 13. The Roots are Gone Too: An Autoethnography of Estrangement and/in Mourning Conclusion
