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Academic Articles

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"One of Us": Orphaned Selves and Legitimacy in Australian Autobiography

Jack Bowers

2015

One of Us": Orphaned Selves and Legitimacy in Australian Autobiography (2015) by Jack Bowers explores 4 Australian autobiographies - Robert Dessaix, A Mother's Disgrace; Sharyn Killens, The Inconvenient Child; Gordon Matthews, An Australian Son; Kate Shayler, The Long Way Home & A Tuesday Thing - where the authors have been displaced by birth families.

The paper examines what Jack Bowers calls, ““orphaned” selves in which the autobiographer is both orphaned in the sense of not knowing one or both birth parents, and orphaned in the sense of being estranged from a fully formed and completed self.”

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Children and young people in social care, and those who have left, are often subject to stigmatisation and discrimination. Being stigmatised and discriminated against can impact negatively on mental health and wellbeing not only during the care experience but often for many years after too. The project aims to contribute towards changing community attitudes towards care experienced people as a group.

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