In all of this, we are interested in defamiliarizing what we think to know: in cracks or breaks in dominant systems, in alternatives or forms or repair, and in actual/concrete policies and practices.
The notion of geslacht is meant to help articulate quite differing topics, disciplines, periods and contexts, and to think with both what can be connected and what is different. It is certainly not meant to comprehend all these differences under one umbrella.
This second workshop is interested in the ways in which people make kin and kin-like relations, and how these function in the making of or the transfer to the next generation. Partly, this happens when words, concepts, forms or laws usually reserved for biological kinship-relations are used for other relations. Examples include godparents, adoptive families, stepparents or -siblings, or the ‘father and mother’ of an orphanage. What does this use of family-like words do, how does it work, what does it entail or yield? Or, maybe, what does it conceal or break up – such as in the case of adoption or child separation?
Kinship-like relations can also be created in practice, often through a house or household in the broad sense, in which several people live together (kin and non-kin) and together perform the work of generating. From African societies to the dynastic houses of the ruling classes in premodern Europe, from monastic communities, slave ships to colonial child care institutions, there are many sites where alternative kinships have grown, often in relations of nursing, care, cohabitation, co-parenting. Again, we ask what these relations do, how they may broaden the scope of what family is, or raising a child. And we might wonder how such forms of kinships relate to those created through sexual desire, reproduction and biological relations.
Finally, kinmaking is not something that only happens between humans. There is a lot to say about the ways in which animals (and probably also plants, or sometimes machines) may become part of the oikos or household relations that might breed kinships. This workhop offers pioneering research in this respect.
Presentors:
Rachel Spronk (University of Amsterdam); Camilla de Koning (Manchester University; Irene van Renswoude (KNAW); Helmer Helmers (Nl-Lab/KNAW) & Nina Lamal (Nl-Lab/KNAW); Geertje Mak (NL-Lab/KNAW) Catherine Nash, Queen Mary University London; Leonie Cornips and Marjo van Koppen (NL-Lab/Meertens Instituut, KNAW).
Participants are welcome. We expect participants to prepare their participation by reading the precirculated papers and to actively engage in the discussions for at least half a day. Everyone is invited to join the free lunch. There is limited space. You can register here.