ABSTRACT

The 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 estrangement—such as a sense of identity, emotional health and well-being, and feelings of belonging—due to the breakdowns in social and family support systems meant to be unconditional and "permanent." The stories display the wide array of reasons why family members become estranged, delving into different types of estrangement, permanent and/or intermittent. In doing so, the writers in this book demonstrate that family relationships are neither easily categorized nor neatly ended—their impact on an individual’s life continues and changes, even in and through estrangement.

This book adds to the ongoing scholarly conversations about family estrangement for students and researchers interested in autoethnography and qualitative inquiry, in a wide range of disciplines in the social sciences, healthcare, and communication studies.

chapter |14 pages

Introduction

section Section 1|60 pages

Estrangement due to lingering effects of childhood neglect, abuse, or abandonment

chapter Chapter 1|22 pages

Writing of, off, to, and from my mother

Moving Forward, Word by Word

chapter Chapter 2|19 pages

Estrangement

A Father/Son Love Story

chapter Chapter 3|17 pages

A Series of @!?#@!? Events

A Journey to Mother–Daughter Estrangement

section Section 2|80 pages

Estrangement due to family secrets, betrayal, or death

chapter Chapter 5|18 pages

Sister Mine

Understanding Family Estrangement in Siblings

chapter Chapter 6|15 pages

Blood Is Thicker Than Water!

chapter Chapter 7|22 pages

Traci(ng) Estrangement

Sisters, Secrets, and Suicide

section Section 3|55 pages

Estrangement resulting from the search for identity, belonging, or home

chapter Chapter 9|17 pages

Too far out all my life…but not drowning

chapter Chapter 10|19 pages

Our Real-Life Matilda Moment

Redefining and Finding Family

section Section 4|73 pages

Estrangement initiated by another and out of our hands

chapter Chapter 11|24 pages

Writing of(f) family

Sarah's Family Hand-Me-Downs

chapter Chapter 12|17 pages

My Mum Is a Dreamer

Losing Family but Learning to Love

chapter Chapter 13|20 pages

The Roots Are Gone Too

An Autoethnography of Estrangement and/in Mourning

chapter |10 pages

Conclusion