The E-Stranged Research Project
In The Beginning – The E-Stranged Research Project
Hello! Welcome to the E-stranged blog.
E-stranged began as an emergent, social action research project, which sprung from my personal experience as well as from the many stories of friends, colleagues, clients and families who have entrusted me with their experiences of family estrangement.My research aim was and continues to be, to participate in the collection, creation and sharing of knowledge about estrangement. The framework for this important work has been the voices of individuals in the context of their lived experiences. To date I have collected over 7o individual stories of estrangement and over 250 survey responses. Thank you for your participation! This research is qualitative as well as quantitative, with my predominant interest being the narratives of people’s lived experiences of estrangement.
The gathering of this information has been purposeful.
1. Researching the subject of family estrangement allows for the demystification of the experience. Currently there is very little written or said about family estrangement. This silence leaves those who are experiencing estrangement feeling marginalized and isolated. Many times people are swamped by guilt and shame believing their family is the only family who ‘breaks up’.
2. Bringing a wide variety of people together who have been impacted by family estrangement allows all of us a broader understanding and appreciation of the issues. Because people experience things differently, their knowledge and understandings are also different. E-stranged lets us take advantage of this pooled experience.
3. Researching family estrangement allows movement away from seeing the issues solely as ‘personal problems’ and allows us to place them in their larger social context. We can explore the nature of family across a continuum of time and social change. We can see it’s actually not, all about us!
4. Action. E-stranged as a project, involves the people who are most impacted by the issue of family estrangement – the people who are in the situation! E-stranged is not an academic exercise, nor limited to a clinical exercise and the research is not being ‘done to’ or ‘on’ anyone. E-stranged is research done by, for and with those who are actually impacted by family estrangement.
It is my profoundest hope that the gathering and sharing of this information will have the capacity to lead to understanding, healing, connection and change at a personal, familial and community level. If you would like to learn more or be involved with the E-stranged project through completing the survey or sharing your story, please email me, Fiona McColl at: e-stranged@live.com
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