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Article
Someone Else’s Child: A Co-Constructed, Performance Autoethnography of Adoption from Three Perspectives
The Qualitative Report
  • Robin L. Danzak, Emerson College
  • Christina B. Gunther, Sacred Heart University
  • Michelle A. Cole, Sacred Heart University
Document Type
Peer-Reviewed Article
Publication Date
1-1-2021
Abstract

Through a framework of reconciling the other, this collaborative autoethnographic performance co-constructs the adoption experience from three perspectives in three different families: a mother struggling with the ethical and emotional implications of the transnational adoption of her daughter; an adult reflecting on her childhood as an adoptee feeling loved, but different; and a woman who met her biological sister at age 28 after her parents revealed a lifelong secret. To develop individual adoption narratives, we applied autoethnographic tools of interactive interviews with family members, reflective writing, and document review (Ellis, 2004) of photos, letters, emails, and calendars. During one school year, we met monthly to discuss relevant literature, share and critique each other’s methods and writing, and identify the common themes in our three, diverse experiences. The result of the iteration of the individual and group processes is a script that weaves together our adoption stories, the discoveries of ourselves, and how, after negotiating feelings and identities, we reconciled the other through positive, loving relationships.

DOI
10.46743/2160-3715/2021.4692
Number of Volumes
3
Publisher
Nova Southeastern University Libraries
Pages
637-651
Creative Commons License
Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-Share Alike 4.0 International
Citation Information

Danzak, R. L., Gunther, C., & Cole, M. (2021). Someone else’s child: A co-constructed, performance autoethnography of adoption from three perspectives. The Qualitative Report, 26(3), 637-651. Doi:10.46743/2160-3715/2021.4692