(Re)forming family: Coming of age in foster care.
Item
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Title
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(Re)forming family: Coming of age in foster care.
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Identifier
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AAI3127850
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identifier
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3127850
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Creator
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Benignus, Nancy V.
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Contributor
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Adviser: Shirley Lindenbaum
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Date
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2004
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Language
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English
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Publisher
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City University of New York.
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Subject
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Anthropology, Cultural | Sociology, Individual and Family Studies | Sociology, Public and Social Welfare | Women's Studies
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Abstract
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This dissertation expands current theoretical understandings of family by engaging in an exploration of the lives of women who were raised in the New York City foster care system, specifically in a group residence located on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. The discussion is not limited to conventional definitions or perceptions of family, but rather explores the multitude of connections that are significant in the women's lives. Some of their connections overlap traditional meanings of family, whereas other connections contradict those conceptions.;By revealing the tensions in the women's daily lives as they attempt to understand, fulfill, or maintain various relationships/experiences, this dissertation recognizes the ambivalent and ambiguous nature of family. Family includes people the women despise as well as people they love (and people they alternately despise and love), it brings them pain as well as comfort, and is often a fluid group of people. The various interpersonal relationships that are examined in this dissertation are not always contextualized as family by all of the former foster care youths, but the relationships are significant and are framed as family by some of them some of the time.;The dissertation also reveals that their concepts of family, connections, relatedness, and kin are intermingled and integrated with concepts of a non-profit institutional foster care agency, the foster care system in which they and the agency are imbedded, the physical building and neighborhood where the building is located, care and care-giving professionals, and photography, memory, mementos, and shared history.;Additionally a further detail of the dissertation is that I, the researcher, am connected to the women beyond the researcher/subject connection. As a result, another element of this dissertation is an examination of the anthropological theories and methods which are challenged by my location vis-a-vis my "subjects". Conceptualizations of the anthropological "field", "subject", and "ethnographic writing" are critiqued and expanded. The dissertation also contains a brief discussion of the institution of foster care. The accompanying appendix provides historical grounding and further insight on foster care. A historical overview of the residence and the agency that operates it are also included.
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Type
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dissertation
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Source
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PQT Legacy CUNY.xlsx
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degree
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Ph.D.
