Close Relations

This book speaks to the meanings and values that inhere in close relations, focusing on 'family' and 'kinship' but also looking beyond these categories. Multifaceted, diverse and subject to constant debate, close relations are ubiquitous in human lives on embodied as well as symbolic levels. Closely related to processes of power, legibility and recognition, close relations are surrounded by boundaries that both constrain and enable their practical, symbolical and legal formation. Carefully contextualising close relations in relation to different national contexts, but also in relation to gender, sexuality, race, religion and dis/ability, the volume points to the importance of and variations in how close relations are lived, understood and negotiated.