Professor Kristina M. Scharp
Kristina M. Scharp, of the University of Washington, will present “Family Estrangement: Untying the Ties that Bind” at 3:30 p.m., Monday, April 8, in Schroeder Hall, room 236.
The event is free and open to the public.
Family is often considered to be non-negotiable; family ties, especially those between parents and children, are assumed to be permanent. Nonetheless, family estrangement, a process during which individuals intentionally create distance from one or more family members, is a common yet understudied relational phenomenon.
In her talk, Professor Scharp will discuss nearly a decade’s worth of multimethod research that focuses on parent-child estrangement. Research findings point to not only why and how estrangement occurs but also illustrate important relational assumptions and cultural constraints surrounding who is and is not allowed to (de)construct family ties.
The talk is sponsored by the College of Arts and Sciences Interdisciplinary Initiative and the ISU Interdisciplinary Research Group on Personal Relationships.
