Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-vdxz6 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-25T15:54:37.090Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

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
Get access

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

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Adams, D., & Lorbach, C. (2012). Accessing donor conception information in Australia: A call for retrospective access. Journal of Law and Medicine, 19(4), 707–721.Google Scholar
Allan, S. (2017). Donor Conception and the Search for Information: From Secrecy and Anonymity to Openness. Abingdon: Routledge, Taylor and Francis Group.Google Scholar
Barnwell, A. (2019). Family secrets and the slow violence of social stigma. Sociology, 53(6), 1111–1126. https://doi.org/10.1177/0038038519846443Google Scholar
Beeson, D. R., Jennings, P. K., & Kramer, W. (2011). Offspring searching for their sperm donors: How family type shapes the process. Human Reproduction, 26(9), 2415–2424. https://doi.org/10.1093/humrep/der202Google Scholar
Blyth, E., Crawshaw, M., Frith, L., & Jones, C. (2012). Donor-conceived people’s views and experiences of their genetic origins: A critical analysis of the research evidence. Journal of Law and Medicine, 19(4).Google ScholarPubMed
Boss, P. (2007). Ambiguous loss theory: Challenges for scholars and practitioners. Family Relations, 56(2), 105–110.Google Scholar
Braun, V., & Clarke, V. (2020). One size fits all? What counts as quality practice in (reflexive) thematic analysis? Qualitative Research in Psychology, 1–25. https://doi.org/10.1080/14780887.2020.1769238Google Scholar
Broom, A., Kenny, K., & Kirby, E. (2018). On waiting, hauntings and surviving: Chronicling life with cancer through solicited diaries. The Sociological Review, 66(3), 682–699. https://doi.org/10.1177/0038026117719216Google Scholar
Broom, A., Lewis, S., Parker, R., Williams Veazey, L., Kenny, K., Kirby, E., Kokanović, R., Lwin, Z., & Koh, E.-S. (2021). Personhood, belonging, affect and affliction. The Sociological Review, 69(5), 1051–1071. https://doi.org/10.1177/00380261211019266Google Scholar
Carsten, J. (2007). Connections and disconnections of memory and kinship in narratives of adoption reunions in Scotland. Ghosts of Memory: Essays on Remembrance and Relatedness, 83–103. https://doi.org/10.1002/9780470692301.ch4Google Scholar
Cosson, B., Dempsey, D., & Kelly, F. (2021). Secret shame – Male infertility and donor conception in the wake of retrospective legislative change. Men and Masculinities, 25(3), 497–515. https://doi.org/10.1177/1097184X211038329CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Daniels, K. (2020). The perspective of adult donor conceived persons. In Beier, K., Brügge, C., Thorn, P., & Wiesemann, C. (Eds.), Assistierte Reproduktion mit Hilfe Dritter (pp. 443–459). Springer Berlin Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-60298-0_29Google Scholar
Darroch, F., & Smith, I. (2021). Establishing identity: How direct‐to‐consumer genetic testing challenges the assumption of donor anonymity. Family Court Review, 59(1), 103–120. https://doi.org/10.1111/fcre.12553Google Scholar
Dempsey, D. (2006). Beyond choice: Family and kinship in the Australian lesbian and gay “baby boom” [PhD thesis]. La Trobe University.Google Scholar
Dempsey, D., Kelly, F., Horsfall, B., Hammarberg, K., Bourne, K., & Johnson, L. (2019). Applications to statutory donor registers in Victoria, Australia: Information sought and expectations of contact. Reproductive Biomedicine & Society Online, 9, 28–36. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rbms.2019.08.002CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Dingle, S. (2021). Brave New Humans: The Dirty Reality of Donor Conception. Hardie Grant Books.Google Scholar
Eng, D. L. (2010). The Feeling of Kinship: Queer Liberalism and the Racialization of Intimacy. Duke University Press.Google Scholar
Freeman, T., Bourne, K., Jadva, V., & Smith, V. (2014). Making connections: Contact between sperm donor relations. In Relatedness in Assisted Reproduction: Families, Origins and Identities (pp. 270–295). Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Frith, L., Blyth, E., Crawshaw, M., & van den Akker, O. (2018a). Secrets and disclosure in donor conception. Sociology of Health & Illness, 40(1), 188–203. https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9566.12633CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Frith, L., Blyth, E., Crawshaw, M., & van den Akker, O. (2018b). Searching for “relations” using a DNA linking register by adults conceived following sperm donation. BioSocieties, 13(1), 170–189. https://doi.org/10.1057/s41292-017-0063-2CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gordon, A. F. (2008). Ghostly Matters: Haunting and the Sociological Imagination. University of Minnesota Press.Google Scholar
Gordon, A. F., Hite, K., & Jara, D. (2020). Haunting and thinking from the Utopian margins: Conversation with Avery Gordon. Memory Studies, 13(3), 337–346. https://doi.org/10.1177/1750698020914017Google Scholar
Halberstam, J. J., & Halberstam, J. (2005). In a Queer Time and Place: Transgender Bodies, Subcultural Lives. New York University Press.Google Scholar
Harrigan, M. M., Dieter, S., Leinwohl, J., & Marrin, L. (2014). Redefining family: An analysis of adult donor-conceived offspring’s discursive meaning-making. Iowa Journal of Communication, 46(1), 16–32.Google Scholar
Hewitt, G. (2002). Missing links: Identity issues of donor conceived people. Journal of Fertility Counselling, 9, 14–19.Google Scholar
Indekeu, A. (2015). Parent’s expectations and experiences of resemblance through donor conception. New Genetics and Society, 34(4), 398–416. https://doi.org/10.1080/14636778.2015.1098525Google Scholar
Indekeu, A., & Hens, K. (2019). Part of my storyThe meaning and experiences of genes and genetics for sperm donor-conceived offspring. New Genetics and Society, 38(1), 18–37.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jadva, V. (2021). Sibling relationships across families created through assisted reproduction. In Brothers and Sisters (pp. 171–184). Springer.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jadva, V., Freeman, T., Kramer, W., & Golombok, S. (2010). Experiences of offspring searching for and contacting their donor siblings and donor. Reproductive BioMedicine Online, 20(4), 523–532. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rbmo.2010.01.001Google Scholar
Kelly, F. (2010). An alternative conception: The legality of home insemination under Canada’s Assisted Human Reproduction Act. Canadian Journal of Family Law, 26(1), 149–170.Google Scholar
Klotz, M. (2016). Wayward relations: Novel searches of the donor-conceived for genetic kinship. Medical Anthropology, 35(1), 45–57. https://doi.org/10.1080/01459740.2015.1012615CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Lambert, C. (2020). The ambivalence of adoption: Adoptive families’ stories. Sociology, 54(2), 363–379. https://doi.org/10.1177/0038038519880107CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Macmillan, C. M., Allan, S., Johnstone, M., & Stokes, M. A. (2021). The motivations of donor-conceived adults for seeking information about, and contact with, sperm donors. Reproductive BioMedicine Online, 43(1), 149–158. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rbmo.2021.04.005Google Scholar
Macpherson, I. (2019). Ethical reflections about the anonymity in gamete donation. Human Reproduction, 34(9), 1847–1848. https://doi.org/10.1093/humrep/dez142Google Scholar
Mason, J. (2004). Personal narratives, relational selves: Residential histories in the living and telling. The Sociological Review, 52(2), 162–179. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-954X.2004.00463.xCrossRefGoogle Scholar
Misztal, B. (2003). Theories of Social Remembering. McGraw-Hill Education (UK).Google Scholar
Morgan, D. (2011). Rethinking Family Practices. Springer.Google Scholar
Newman, C. E., Persson, A., Prankumar, S., Lea, T., & Aggleton, P. (2020). Experiences of family belonging among two generations of sexually diverse Australians. Family Relations, 69(2), 292–307. https://doi.org/10.1111/fare.12411Google Scholar
Newsweek. (1934, May 12). “Ghost” fathers: Children provided for the childless. Newsweek, 3(19), 16.Google Scholar
Newton, G. (2022). Doing reflexivity in research on donor conception: Examining moments of bonding and becoming. In Shaw, R. M. (Ed.), Reproductive Citizenship: Technologies, Rights and Relationships. Palgrave Macmillan.Google Scholar
Newton, G., Drysdale, K., Zappavigna, M., & Newman, C. E. (2023) Truth, proof, sleuth: trust in direct-to-consumer DNA testing and other sources of identity information among Australian donor-conceived people. Sociology, 57(1). https://doi.org/10.1177/00380385221091184Google Scholar
Newton, G., & Southerton, C. (2023) Situated talk: A method for a reflexive encounter with #donorconceived on TikTok. Media International Australia, 186(1), 66–80. https://doi.org/10.1177/1329878X211064646Google Scholar
Newton, G., Zappavigna, M., Drysdale, K., & Newman, C. E. (2022) Memes as bonding icons for belonging in donor-conceived people. Social Media and Society, 8(1). https://doi.org/10.1177/20563051211069055.Google Scholar
Nixon, R. (2011). Slow Violence and the Environmentalism of the Poor. Harvard University Press. https://doi.org/10.4159/harvard.9780674061194Google Scholar
Nordqvist, P. (2011). “Dealing with sperm”: Comparing lesbians’ clinical and non-clinical donor conception processes. Sociology of Health & Illness, 33(1), 114–129. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9566.2010.01279.xGoogle Scholar
Nordqvist, P. (2014). The drive for openness in donor conception: Disclosure and the trouble with real life. International Journal of Law, Policy and the Family, 28(3), 321–338. https://doi.org/10.1093/lawfam/ebu010Google Scholar
Nordqvist, P. (2017). Genetic thinking and everyday living: On family practices and family imaginaries. The Sociological Review, 65(4), 865–881. https://doi.org/10.1177/0038026117711645CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pearce, R. (2018). Trans temporalities and non-linear ageing. In King, A., Almack, K., Suen, Y.-T., & Westwood, S. (Eds.), Older Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Trans People: Minding the Knowledge Gaps (1st ed.). Routledge.Google Scholar
Power, J., Perlesz, A., Brown, R., Schofield, M., Pitts, M., McNair, R., & Bickerdike, A. (2010). Diversity, tradition and family: Australian same-sex attracted parents and their families. Gay and Lesbian Issues and Psychology Review, 6(2), 66.Google Scholar
Ribbens McCarthy, J. (2012). The powerful relational language of “family”: Togetherness, belonging and personhood. The Sociological Review, 60(1), 68–90. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-954X.2011.02045.xGoogle Scholar
Riggs, D. W. (2008). Lesbian mothers, gay sperm donors, and community: Ensuring the well-being of children and families. Health Sociology Review, 17(3), 226–234.Google Scholar
Rodino, I. S., Burton, P. J., & Sanders, K. A. (2011). Donor information considered important to donors, recipients and offspring: An Australian perspective. Reproductive BioMedicine Online, 22(3), 303–311. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rbmo.2010.11.007Google Scholar
Rowland, R. (1985). The social and psychological consequences of secrecy in artificial insemination by donor (AID) programmes. Social Science & Medicine, 21(4), 391–396. https://doi.org/10.1016/0277-9536(85)90219-9Google Scholar
Scheib, J. E., Ruby, A., & Benward, J. (2017). Who requests their sperm donor’s identity? The first ten years of information releases to adults with open-identity donors. Fertility and Sterility, 107(2), 483–493. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.fertnstert.2016.10.023CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Scott, S. (2018). A sociology of nothing: Understanding the unmarked. Sociology, 52(1), 3–19. https://doi.org/10.1177/0038038517690681Google Scholar
Smart, C. (2007). Personal Life: New Directions in Sociological Thinking. Polity.Google Scholar
Smith, A. K., Persson, A., Drysdale, K., Bryant, J., Valentine, K., Wallace, J., Hamilton, M., Gray, R. M., & Newman, C. E. (2021). Family imaginaries in the disclosure of a blood‐borne virus. Sociology of Health & Illness. https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9566.13316CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Swanson, K. W. (2012). Adultery by doctor: Artificial insemination, 1890–1945. Chicago-Kent Law Review, 87(2), 44.Google Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×