Redoing Family After Estrangement
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 8130331 |
|---|---|
| Authors | R Reczek (0000-0001-5309-3632, Department of Sociology The Ohio State University Columbus Ohio USA) |
| Year | 2026 |
| Volume | 88 |
| Issue | 4 |
| Pages | 932-945 |
| Publication date | 2026-02-13 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Journal of Marriage and the Family (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0022-2445 • E-ISSN: 1741-3737 |
| Publisher | Wiley (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1111/jomf.70065 |
| OpenAlex | W7128906141 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 72 |
Objective This study theorizes estrangement as a catalyst for redoing family through a dynamic process of rebuilding kinship's meaning, structure, and content. Background Research on family estrangement has overwhelmingly focused on its emotional, social, and financial consequences, overlooking how estrangement holistically reshapes the meaning, structure, and content of family itself. Method In‐depth interviews with 68 adults estranged from at least one family of origin member. Results Findings reveal that family meaning was redone by rejecting biology and emphasizing choice as an organizing logic of kin, as well as by cultivating symbolic family with ancestors. Family structure and content were redone in concert in three ways: (a) the cultivation of safe and trustworthy connections with same‐age friends, housemates, and community members as well as younger children; (b) the reliance on unconditionally supportive surrogate elder coworkers, community members, and friends' parents; and (c) the re‐prioritization of sustained presence with non‐estranged extended kin. Conclusion By applying redoing family theory to in‐depth interviews on family estrangement, this study adds to the ongoing theorizing of family as a mediated practice rather than a static institution. Implications Findings move beyond deficit narratives of estrangement by highlighting the specific way estranged people rewrite family life; this prompts future research on the redoing of family in other contexts
Extended family · Family member · Family studies · Meaning (existential · Narrative · Qualitative research · Trustworthiness · Typology · Attachment and Relationship Dynamics · Family Dynamics and Relationships · Intergenerational Family Dynamics and Caregiving
Family Processes and Identity
Mothering While Black
The Changing Impact and Challenges of Familial Estrangement
Emerging Ideas. Family estrangement and its association with life satisfaction and depressiveness in adulthood
Couple therapy in the 2020s
Shifting the Center
The Science and Art of Interviewing
Family Estrangement
Gender Trouble
Uses of media representation in LGBTQ adults’ relationship with their parent
Parent–adult child estrangement in the United States by gender, race/ethnicity, and sexuality
The Ideal Job‐Seeker Norm
‘They live on in the photos’
Alternative kinship structures, resilience and social support among immigrant trans Latinas in the USA
I’m finally allowed to be me”
Surfacing Family Privilege and Supremacy in Family Science
Interlinking structural racism and heteropatriarchy
Fictive Kin, Families We Choose, and Voluntary Kin
Family “Bonds”
Lay Conceptions of “Family”
The Relationship Between Individuals' Definitions of Family and Implicit Personal Theories of Communication
Indigenous families
Parents’ economic support of young-adult children
The Gendered Experience of Family Estrangement in Later Life
Somebody's got to pick eggs”
Disconnection and Decision-making
Between elderly parents and adult children
Disclaimers
Family Is the Beginning but Not the End
Transitions in Young Adulthood and the Relationship between Parent and Offspring Well-Being
Fictive Kinship Relations in black extended families
Constructing family
Uncertainty issues and management in adult children's stories of their estrangement with their parents
Who to Blame and How to Solve It
Fictive Kin Term Use and Social Relationships
Fictive Kin as Social Capital in New Immigrant Communities
Aunties, Aunts, and Tías
Doing Gender
Redoing Gender, Redoing Religion
Doing, Undoing, or Redoing Gender
Fictive Kin Networks among African Americans, Black Caribbeans, and Non-Latino Whites
Estrangement Between Siblings in Adulthood
Whither Fictive Kin? Or, What's in a Name
Flexible Coding of In-depth Interviews
Family Estrangement and the Unseen Work of Not Doing Family
Kinship, Affinity and Connectedness
Displaying Families
Holding back and hidden family displays
Relationships among adult full, half, and stepsiblings
How intergenerational estrangement matters for maternal and adult children's health
Defining and measuring family
A Decade of Research on Intergenerational Ties
Doing Family Ambivalence
| Citation velocity | historical |
|---|---|
| Highly cited | No |