Suchergebnisse

Drawing on two studies of children aged between seven and 10 years this article explores their narratives of themselves, families, sibling and peer relationships. Their narratives were full of push-pull and contradictory processes. The children moved towards knowledge as well as a disavowal of 'reality' about their families and material conditions. Critically they revealed profound wishes for something better alongside the knowledge that 'this is it'. This article focuses on theorizing children's understandings of and relationships to social and material life in order to argue that meanings matter and meanings have matter. Narratives are social in two critical ways: they involve reaching out and connecting with others, and narratives are constructed within and through the social sphere, while simultaneously they are shot through with conscious and unconscious fantasies. Children are moving towards being in a complex – engaged in and inhabiting many relationships.

Adoption touches on basic personal and cultural narratives, emotions and fantasies surrounding the self and family. Amal Treacher and ***Ilan Katz explore the narratives of all those involved in the process — both professionals and those with personal investments. They draw on contemporary theory of narrative and psychoanalytic theory of fantasy in order to explore and understand some of the issues arising in adoption. A central contention is that all identity, whether adopted or not, is multifaceted, inherently conflicted and constantly developing. The theoretical and emotional endeavour is to place this view of identity as a central backbone to understanding adoption. The authors argue that many narratives and fantasies function to pass over problematical feelings and fantasies. For example, life story books can silence the difficulties experienced for the adoptee and may not allow space for an exploration of troublesome feelings and fantasies. They contend that maturity is based on the capacity to face up to contradictions and conflict, and to allow for such complex narratives.