Like Family

Narratives of Fictive Kinship

Margaret K. Nelson (Autor)

Buch | Hardcover

244 Seiten

2020
Rutgers University Press (Verlag)
978-0-8135-6406-7 (ISBN)

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For decades, social scientists have assumed that “fictive kinship” is a phenomenon associated only with marginal peoples and people of color in the United States. In this innovative book, Nelson reveals the frequency, texture and dynamics of relationships which are felt to be “like family” among the white middle-class. Drawing on extensive, in-depth interviews, Nelson describes the quandaries and contradictions, delight and anxiety, benefits and costs, choice and obligation in these relationships. She shows the ways these fictive kinships are similar to one another as well as the ways they vary—whether around age or generation, co-residence, or the possibility of becoming “real” families. Moreover she shows that different parties to the same relationship understand them in some similar – and some very different – ways. Theoretically rich and beautifully written, the book is accessible to the general public while breaking new ground for scholars in the field of family studies.

Margaret K. Nelson is the A. Barton Hepburn Professor of Sociology Emerita at Middlebury College in Vermont. She is the author of Parenting Out of Control: Anxious Parents in Uncertain Times and the co-author, with Rosanna Hertz, of Random Families: Genetic Strangers, Sperm Donor Siblings, and the Creation of New Kin.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
PREFACE
INTRODUCTION
PART I: TRUE LIFE STORIES
            Chapter 1: The Texture and Dynamics of Like Sibling Bonds
            Chapter 2: The Limits of Like Sibling Bonds
PART II: ONE-ACT PLAYS
            Chapter 3: Guest Teens: Learning Boundaries
            Chapter 4: Host Families: Inclusion and Exclusion
PART III: FAIRY TALES
            Chapter 5: Unofficial Children: If the Shoe Fits
            Chapter 6: Informal Parents: Promises Broken, Promises Kept
CONCLUSION: RECONSIDERING KINSHIP
APPENDICES
            Appendix A: Information about Respondents; Cast of Characters
            Appendix B: Studying Fictive Kinship and Informal Adoption

Erscheinungsdatum	01.05.2020
Reihe/Serie	Families in Focus
Zusatzinfo	15 tables
Verlagsort	New Brunswick NJ
Sprache	englisch
Maße	152 x 229 mm
Gewicht	481 g
Themenwelt	Sozialwissenschaften ► Soziologie ► Gender Studies
	Sozialwissenschaften ► Soziologie ► Makrosoziologie
	Sozialwissenschaften ► Soziologie ► Mikrosoziologie
ISBN-10	0-8135-6406-9 / 0813564069
ISBN-13	978-0-8135-6406-7 / 9780813564067
Zustand	Neuware