7 - Freedom to “Live Her Own Liberty”

Summary

In Chapter 7, the author pinpoints the diverse strategies of resistance and agency employed by filhas de criação throughout the life course. She suggests that their resistance to racial, gender, and class domination, much like their captivity, occurs on multiple levels, including through their affective performances, their manipulation of the family ideology, escape, subterfuge, and their reinterpretation and rejection of certain family relationships. By organizing these resistance strategies based on women’s status at the time of the interview (those who escaped and severed ties, those who moved out but remain attached to their adoptive families, and those who plan to live with their families until they die), the author illustrates how resistance and emancipation exist at all levels of family embeddedness and are enacted in ways that allow filhas de criação to find their own sense of freedom.