Search

Drawing on interviews, autobiographies, and online ethnography, this paper explores the ways in which nonbiological lesbian parents and their family members use photographs to articulate their family relationships with their nonbiological children. Although a biogenetic link to children was perceived as unnecessary, even irrelevant, to their love for their children, nearly all the participants expressed exhilaration when the nonbiological offspring looked like or acted like the nonbiological parent. Many nonbiological parents composed and displayed photographs in ways to highlight similarity between themselves and their children. In this way, nonbiological parents "perform" consanguinity—a blood connection—for critical audiences, including themselves. Yet, the "display work" of queer family analyzed in this paper never fully masks their difference from the norm. The lesbian photography practices discussed in this paper suggest that while genetic thinking shapes family practices, they are also creating new meanings. Through photography practices, lesbian families demonstrate how doing queer kinship transforms heteronormative belonging. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Parental constellations, by which more than two adults decide to conceive and raise children together, are unrecognized by most jurisdictions. Via in-depth-interviews with 21 parents living in Belgium and the Netherlands, this article explores the legal experiences of parents within intentional plus-two-parent constellations through the methodological framework of "display work" (i.e., families are not only done but also displayed (Finch, 2007)). The parents' everyday experiences with absent legality were found to be playing out via complex interplays among internal and external levels of display. In addition, researcher's positions are believed to play a role in how certain forms of display are carried out. Consequently, the concept of display work grants us more insight into the wide array of parents' experiences with (the lack of) legal framework and its repercussions for everyday life, as well as the parents' aim to contribute to a broader context of awareness-raising and policymaking. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Weddings are collective rituals that enable couples to show their solemn commitment to an invited audience. In this sense, weddings can thus be viewed as important forms of 'display work'. While there are clear commonalities between rituals and display work, particularly in terms of their emphasis on spectacle, demonstration and audience, little attention has been given to how display work can inform and indeed transform wedding rituals. We use display work as a lens for exploring how same-sex couples construct and enact their wedding. In particular we show how heteronormative, gendered traditions that underpin the wedding rite are negotiated. Our findings demonstrate the interplay between display work and normative ritual elements. We identify four tactics of 'reflexive display': strategic compliance; playful appropriation; annexation; and conspicuous absence. Together, these show how the wedding rite is done, undone or redone, to reflect each couple's unique relationship and perspective on same-sex union. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]