Redoing Family After Estrangement

ABSTRACT Objective This study theorizes estrangement as a catalyst for redoing family through a dynamic process of rebuilding kinship's meaning, structure, and content. Background Research on family estrangement has overwhelmingly focused on its emotional, social, and financial consequences, overlooking how estrangement holistically reshapes the meaning, structure, and content of family itself. Method In‐depth interviews with 68 adults estranged from at least one family of origin member. Results Findings reveal that family meaning was redone by rejecting biology and emphasizing choice as an organizing logic of kin, as well as by cultivating symbolic family with ancestors. Family structure and content were redone in concert in three ways: (a) the cultivation of safe and trustworthy connections with same‐age friends, housemates, and community members as well as younger children; (b) the reliance on unconditionally supportive surrogate elder coworkers, community members, and friends' parents; and (c) the re‐prioritization of sustained presence with non‐estranged extended kin. Conclusion By applying redoing family theory to in‐depth interviews on family estrangement, this study adds to the ongoing theorizing of family as a mediated practice rather than a static institution. Implications Findings move beyond deficit narratives of estrangement by highlighting the specific way estranged people rewrite family life; this prompts future research on the redoing of family in other contexts.