I will present one collaborative textual project inspired by autoethography. It brought together practitioners and anthropologists focused on experiences of caring for children taken away from their first families. I mean to open a discussion about the possible extrapolations of this kind of work.
Paper long abstract:
Practices of care have been at the center of my ethnographic interests for quite a while. I have been also experimenting with autoethnographic writing and thinking while working on my individual research projects. While being a part of an ethnographic research group focused on the experiences of adoption in contemporary Poland, I managed to bring together a group of practitioners and anthropologists who collaborated on a writing project inspired by autoethnography. We focused on experiences of caring for children taken away from their first families. Due to the Covid-19 restrictions this collaboration was carried out exclusively online. The group met in person only months after we concluded the workshop meetings, for an occasion of our book launch (Decemeber 2022). We published a manuscript composed of seven texts and a more theoretical introduction. We also prepared a version of this book for children. In my presentation, I would like to introduce our mode of cooperation, the theme, the ethical dilemmas we faced. I would present the book itself and talk about the texts and the variety of voices we collected, as well as the silences we did not fill out. Eventually, I would like to open a discussion about the possible extrapolations of this model of work for my future projects (focused on care of the recent refugee children to Poland) and any others.