Expectations, conflicts, and uncertainties: The construction of kinship ties among adopted individuals who find their families of origin

“The dream of my life is to know where I was born,” “it was like closing an open door,” these are some of the expressions used by individuals who, after years of intense and persistent searching, finally succeeded in locating their families of origin1. These men and women are part of an activist collective fighting for the right to know one's origins in Argentina. Most of them were falsely registered at the civil registry, which means they lack the documentation and information necessary for their search. This turns many into true researchers of their own history, tireless and creative “searchers” who have developed diverse technical, emotional, and practical skills to gather information about their origins. From an ethnographic perspective, this article recovers the experiences of individuals who have found their birth families in order to analyze how kinship and identity ties are constructed, and how meanings surrounding family, motherhood, siblinghood, and abandonment are shaped in these cases. Although reunions may appear to signal the end of the search, these stories reveal dilemmas and uncertainties in which conflict is a recurring element. Thus, the encounter leads to a new search, a search for creative strategies to cope with the expectations, desires, and demands of everyone involved. Information about one's origins, beyond being constitutive of personal identity (Strathern 1999), becomes a disruptive information for adoptees, as it mobilizes, alters, and reconfigures relationships, positions, and emotions within both the family of origin and the adoptive family.