Abstract

GESTEIRA, Soledad. Secrets, lies and stigmas. The search for biological origins as transit from "as if" to "how it was". Antipod. Rev. Antropol. Arqueol. [online]. 2015, n.21, pp.165-184. ISSN 1900-5407.  https://doi.org/10.7440/antipoda21.2015.08.

In this article based on ethnographic fieldwork conducted within an association of persons who had been adopted or falsely registered and who wanted to know their "biological origins," I analyze a number of dimensions that provide insight into the characteristics of their searches. This includes the role and meanings these individuals attribute to money when they know they were bought at birth, their assessments of the secrets and lies told by their foster families, and references to the stigmas that "being adopted" supposedly implies. The analysis allows me to argue that the search for knowledge about their origins can be understood as a transition in which these people disassemble the as if (they were biological families) practices their foster families have created to hide "the truth," in pursuit of knowledge of how it was, i.e. what their births and all the circumstances surrounding them were actually like.

Keywords : Search for origins; secrets; stigmas; adoption and transition.

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