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Chapter 9 - On Familial Haunting

Donor-Conceived People’s Experiences of Living with Anonymity and Absence

from Part II - Children’s and Adults’ Lived Experiences in Diverse Donor-Linked Families

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 July 2023

By
Giselle Newton
Edited by
Fiona Kelly ,
Deborah Dempsey  and
Adrienne Byrt
Fiona Kelly
Affiliation:
La Trobe University, Victoria
Deborah Dempsey
Affiliation:
Swinburne University of Technology, Victoria
Adrienne Byrt
Affiliation:
Swinburne University of Technology, Victoria
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Summary

Over the last two decades, researchers have sought to understand whether and to what extent donor-conceived people are motivated to seek contact with donors and donor siblings. This chapter contributes to this literature by focusing on donor-conceived adults’ everyday experiences living with anonymity and absence across the life course. Drawing on the concept of ‘haunting’ and combining reflexive thematic analysis of semi-structured interviews with Australian donor-conceived adults (N = 28) and vignettes of personal experience, I elucidate how anonymity and absence reshape flows between past, present and future, altering personhood and relationality. I argue that framing anonymity as an issue of the past (re)produces ongoing haunting and that reform without concomitant processes of truth-telling and redress represent an injustice to those who continue to live with the lingering impacts of such past conditions. More broadly, this work expands sociological conceptualisations of family by attending to how familial (non-)relationships shape belonging.

Keywords

donor-conceived peoplehauntinganonymitydonorsdonor-siblings
Type
Chapter
Information
Donor-Linked Families in the Digital Age
Relatedness and Regulation
 , pp. 154 - 173
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2023

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