The Rebuilding of Fragmented Memories, Broken Families and Rootless Selves among Danish Care Leavers

Many care leavers share a sense of fragmented or absent memories and a feeling of being abandoned and rootless. In this article I examine how some care leavers in a Danish context attempt to reconstruct fragmented memories and fragile relationships through tangible and creative practices and processes by which memories and relations are created, repaired, strengthened, and shaped. Understanding their engagement with the past as transformative memory-work, and family and kinship as acquired through practice, I describe some of the specific preconditions for care leavers when it comes to memory-making and family formation. Next, I illustrate how care leavers in different ways deal with broken family ties and how their practices and reflections transform their personal history and the way they relate to others and position themselves in society.