Queer Kinship: Affects, Families, Bonds (Web)

Time: 09.-10.04.2024
Venue: Univ. for Foreigners of Siena
Proposals by: 28.02.2024

This international conference aims to open up a space for critical debate on these issues and to develop interdisciplinary scholarly networks. It is the first of three conferences on this theme that will be held in 2024-2025, in Siena (Italy), Birmingham (UK) and Toronto (CA).
In recent decades, critical, cultural, political and legal discourses on the family have undergone significant shifts leading to new perspectives on the ways in which societies conceive of, recognise and experience affective bonds. New legislation, such as civil partnerships, same-sex marriages and increased access to technologies of reproduction, have enabled new family forms to be established and legitimised. Cultural representation of these new families has increased their visibility and shone new light on “alternative” affective forms of co-existence. However, the queer family is not a new phenomenon, and many modalities of queer kinship, beyond legal family structures, or the pervasive norm of the ‘couple’, have existed for a considerable time: these include, for example, socalled romantic friendships, Boston marriages, polyamorous communities, queer kinship groups, fillus de anima and many other different forms of affective ties
that may change across the life course. Due to discrepancies in law and problematic socio-cultural attitudes, certain forms of queer kinship, or kinships between certain individuals, are more culturally accepted and officially recognised than others, resulting in intersectional discrimination.
While there is a significant body of academic work that explores some of these questions from a sociological, anthropological and legal perspective, as yet there is little sustained analysis of the developing cultural discourses and representation both in individual contexts and across national linguistic and social contexts. The transcultural and transnational circulation of discourses on queer families and kinship has yet to be fully assessed and investigated. A deeper understanding of these cultural discourses, in relation to their … read more (PDF).

Source: Qstudy-l