CEU Department of Gender Studies Family, gender and sexuality 2-credit course, Winter Term 2016-17

Instructor: Rita Béres-Deák

The topic of family and kinship has been central to both feminist activism and gender studies. On the one hand, gender inequalities within the family have often been the target of feminist critique and analysis. On the other hand, recent developments in society and technology (such as assisted reproduction techniques, transnational families or same-sex parenting) have challenged formerly unquestioned assumptions about the nature of family, including ones related to gender and sexuality. Such developments have also caused heated debates on the social and political levels, with worries about the ‘decline of the family’, ethical issues regarding assisted reproduction and adoption, and new concepts and communities formed in response to new family forms. This course is aimed at giving a general overview of approaches to family from a feminist perspective, with special focus on gender and sexuality. It strives to dismantle taken-for-granted assumptions about the family, explore its less widely acknowledged forms, and explore how it is influenced by gender, sexuality, race, and mainstream institutions such as the state or market forces. It is especially, but not exclusively, aimed at MA students whose research topic is in some way related to family or kinship. Most of the readings come from the field of social sciences. While they include some basic theoretical texts, many of them are case studies. The latter give opportunity for students to analyze given phenomena or cultures from a gender perspective, and also provide examples for analyzing primary material, possibly useful for those who are going to base their term paper or thesis on fieldwork. During the course, each student must give a short (maximum 10 minute) presentation of a chosen text in class, which includes a short summary of the text, the student’s personal reflections on the topic (based on her/his own experience or readings) and its relevance to her/his MA thesis topic. Students may choose this text from among the course material (in which case they present on the class when we discuss their text) or choose another one relevant to their research topic (the teacher is

1 available for help in making this choice). In the latter case the student must present on the last class of term. Students can also suggest for this class topics that have not been (adequately) covered during the rest of the course. Students must submit a 10-15-page term paper one week after the end of term. This paper can be either a literature review connected to a given topic in the field of kinship studies (which may, of course, be connected to the student’s research topic) or the analysis of some primary material related to family (literary or media text, material collected during fieldwork) from a feminist perspective, based on the issues discussed during the course. Proposals for this paper should be submitted on the 7th week of term.

Learning outcomes: Students will become familiar with some of the most important concepts and trends in contemporary kinship studies, with a special focus on gender relations; Students will learn to deconstruct some general assumptions about family in Euro- American culture in general and their own cultural setting in particular; Students will learn to apply the theories discussed in class to their own cultural setting and/or research field; Students will improve their skills in analyzing case studies; Students will improve their analytical skills during reading, group discussions and writing the final paper; Students will develop their writing and presentation skills.

Assessment: Active class participation: 25% In-class presentation: 25% Term paper: 50%

Readings 1. January 9th 2017 Gender and kinship This class lays the theoretical foundations of the course. Scheffler’s article discusses and challenges the way kinship studies traditionally approaches gender; it also summarizes some of the key theories of kinship studies and their gender implications. These will become especially important when we speak about ‘alternative’ family forms. Collier and Yanagisako’s classic article (of which we will only read the beginning) approaches from the other angle, from gender studies, and calls for a unified analysis of kinship and gender. Scheffler, Harold W. (2004 [1973]): Sexism and Naturalism in the Study of Kinship. In Parkin, Robert – Linda Stone eds.: Kinship and Family. An Anthropological Reader. Malden-Oxford-Carlton: Blackwell. Pp. 294-308.

Collier, Jane Fishburne-Sylvia Junko Yanagisako (1987): Toward a Unified Analysis of Gender and Kinship. In Collier, Jane Fishburne-Sylvia Junko Yanagisako eds.: Gender and Kinship. Essays Toward a Unified Analysis. Stanford: Stanford University Press (pp. 14-35.)

2. January 16th 2017 Gender roles in the family There are three areas which are usually associated with gendered division of labor in the family: paid work outside the home in order to maintain the family, housework, and keeping the family together. We are going to have a text for each of these. Tilly and Scott’s book, of which we will read the concluding chapter, challenges some widespread notions concerning women and paid work. Di Leonardo’s classic article discusses women’s role in ‘kin-keeping’. From Hochschild’s book I have chosen a case study, which will hopefully prompt discussions about whether, and to what extent, the gendered nature of housework has been changing in the past decades. Tilly, Louise A. – Joan W. Scott (1987): Women, Work and Family. New York and London: Routledge (pp. 227-232) Di Leonardo, Micaela (1992): The Female World of Cards and Holidays: Women, Families and the Work of Kinship. In Thorne, Barrie and Marilyn Yalom eds.: Rethinking the Family. Some Feminist Questions. Boston: Northeastern University Press. pp. 246-261 Hochschild, Arlie Russell (2003 [1989]): The Second Shift. London: Penguin Books. (pp. 35-62)

3. January 23rd 2017 Intersectional analysis of gender, race, and kinship It is often assumed that non-white communities have different (and, according to most mainstream discourses, inferior) forms of kinship in comparison to the unmarked white family. Based on readings discussing Roma, African American and Hawai’ian kinship, we will discuss to what extent these forms challenge mainstream White interpretations of kinship, and whether the kinship forms discussed in them are specific to non-White communities.

3 Stewart, Michael (1997): The Time of the Gypsies. Oxford – Boulder: Westview Press(pp. 50-72.) Stack, Carol (1974): All Our Kin. New York: Basic Books (pp. 45-61) Modell, Judith (1998): Rights to the Children: Foster Care and Social Reproduction in Hawai’i. In Franklin, Sarah and Helena Ragoné eds. (1998): Reproducing Reproduction. Kinship, Power, and Technological Innovation. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. pp. 156-172.

4. January 30th 2017 The family and the state 1: definition of family This class focuses on intimate citizenship, that is, the way people’s personal (including family) choices are influenced by the state. As opposed to the myth that the family is a “safe haven” from the public sphere, the articles assigned for this session show that the state authorization of only certain family forms as legitimate may have serious symbolic and even practical consequences for those whose family forms deviate from the supposed norm. Weeks, Jeffrey (1995 [1991]): Pretended Family Relationships in Weeks: Against Nature. Essays on History, Sexuality and identity. London: Rivers Oram Press, pp. 134-157.

Maurer, Bill (1996): The Land, the Law and Legitimate Children: Thinking through Gender, Kinship and Nation in the British Virgin Islands. In Maynes, Mary Jo, Ann Waltner, Birgitte Soland and Ulrike Strasser eds.: Gender, Kinship and Power. A Comparative and Interdisciplinary History. New York – London: Routledge, pp. 351-364.

5. February 6th 2017 The family and the state 2: reproduction One field that the state strongly regulates concerning family is reproduction. Our first case study comes from a country, state socialist Romania, which carried pronatalism to the extreme, defining reproduction as national duty. The Melhuus and Howell article demonstrates how mainstream definitions of kinship shape state policy and legislation concerning ‘non-traditional’ families. Together with the previous session, this class puts family in a broader social context and examines it in relation to wider processes. Kligman, Gail (1998): The Politics of Duplicity. Controlling Reproduction in Ceausescu’s Romania. Berkeley-Los Angeles-London: University of California Press (pp. 71-87)

Melhuus, Marit and Signe Howell (2009): Adoption and Assisted Conception: One Universe of Unnatural Procreation. An Examination of Norwegian Legislation. In Edwards, Jeanette and Charles Salazar: European Kinship in the Age of Biotechnology. New York-Oxford: Berghahn Books. Pp. 144- 161 6. February 13th 2017 New developments in kinship: transnationalism On previous classes we have seen how kinship is often strongly connected to the nation. On this class we deconstruct this widespread trope by examining families that cross national lines due to immigration or transnational adoption. The two studies also highlight that other factors we usually think of as uniting families – such as race, geographical location or native language – may also be diverse within families. Erel, Umut (2002): Reconceptualizing Motherhood: Experiences of Migrant Women from Turkey Living in Germany. In Bryceson, Deborah-Ulla Vuorela: The Transnational Family. New European Frontiers and Global Networks. Oxford-New York: Berg Pp. 127-146.

Howell, Signe (2001): Self-Conscious Kinship: Some Contested Values in Norwegian Transnational Adoption. in Franklin-McKinnon eds.: Relative Values. Reconfiguring Kinship Studies. Durham- London: Duke UP. Pp. 203-223.

7. February 20th 2017 Term paper proposals due! New developments in kinship: assisted reproduction technologies Assisted reproduction technologies are often perceived to occasion a revolution in kinship, as they complicate the notion of biogenetic ties lying at the heart of Euro- American kinship, as well as provide the possibility of radical changes in parenting roles. The two articles assigned for this class approach this issue from different angles. Hayden sees assisted reproduction technologies as subversive, and analyzes how they complicate notions of gender within the family. The other article, however, points out that various forms of discrimination continue to be present and are even carried further by these technologies. Based on the readings we can discuss the way technology affects kinship. Hayden, Corinne P. (2004): Gender, Genetics and Generation: Reformulating Biology. Lesbian Kinship. In Robert Parkin and Linda Stone eds.: Kinship and Family. An Anthropological Reader. Boston: Blackwell. pp. 378-934 Cynthia R. Daniels and Erin Heidt-Forsythe (2012): Gendered Eugenics and the Problematic of Free Market Reproductive Technologies: Sperm and Egg Donation in the United States. Signs, Vol. 37, No. 3 (Spring 2012), pp. 719-747

8. February 27th 2017 Kinship as choice

5 People one considers family although they are not biological or affinal relatives are often termed ‘fictive kin’ in literature. There are various myths about such arrangements, like they are just substitutes for absent biogenetic ties, or are a product of modern individualism. Of the two readings, Weston’s classic book (of which we will read one chapter, also published separately in an anthology) introduces the notion of ‘families of choice’ within the LGBTQ community; the famous documentary Paris Is Burning is another illustration of this. However, the second reading complicates the issue and makes us consider whether and to what extent chosen kinship is a (post)modern phenomenon, and what other factor may influence it. Weston, Kath (1991): Families We Choose. Lesbians, Gays, Kinship. New York: Columbia University Press. (extract) White, Jenny B. (2000): Kinship, reciprocity, and the world market. In Schweitzer, Peter P. ed.: Dividends of Kinship. Meanings and Uses of Social Relatedness. London and New York: Routledge. Pp. 124-150. Film screening (on the 8th or 9th week of term, on a separate occasion outside class): Paris Is Burning

9. March 6th 2017 Complicating the heterosexual family Same-sex parenting is sometimes seen as the most radical subversion of ‘traditional’ family arrangements, at other times as the symbol of assimilationist tendencies within the LGBT community. It is this monolithic treatment of rainbow families that is challenged by the three articles assigned for this class. While Ryan-Flood discusses heteronormative discourses underlying lesbians’ choice of family form, Lewin discusses gay fathers in a way that goes beyond the assimilation/subversion binary. Gross’s study on French rainbow families brings into the picture the perspective of the family of origin and thus suggests wider implications of same-sex parenting for Euro-American kinship structures. Gross, Martine, 2011. Grandparenting in French Lesbian and Gay Families. In Takács, J. and Kuhar, R. eds. Doing Families. Gay and Lesbian Family Practices. Ljubljana: Mirovni Inštitut, pp. 117-134 Ryan-Flood, Róisin (2005): Contested Heteronormativities: Discourses of Fatherhood among Lesbian Parents in Sweden and Ireland. Sexualities 2005 8:189-204 OR Lewin, Ellen (2009): Who’s Gay? What’s Gay? Dilemmas of Identity Among Gay Fathers. In Lewin- Leap eds.: Out in Public. Reinventing Lesbian/Gay Anthropology in a Globalizing World. Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell. Pp. 86-103.

10. March 13th 2017 Complicating the cisgendered family During the previous classes we have seen several implications of gender for kinship. But what happens when (at least) one of the parents radically transgresses gender norms? The first article discusses the possibility of female fatherhood, the second the issue of male pregnancies, highlighting just some complications that arise from going beyond cisgendered kinship. Padavic, Irene and Jonniann Butterfield (2011): Mothers, Fathers and “Mathers”: Negotiating a Lesbian Co-Parental Identity. Gender and Society 25. pp. 176-196. More, Sam Dylan (1998): The pregnant man – an oxymoron? Journal of Gender Studies 1998(7)/3, pp.319-328.

11. March 20th 2017 Some further complications This class groups together two issues not adequately covered by previous sessions but nevertheless meriting attention: disability and polyamory. Rapp’s study of how disability may complicate kinship goes against some taken-for-granted notions like resemblance or family solidarity. The second article overviews the difficulties of polyamorous families when faced with the mainstream monogamous family model. Rapp, Rayna (1995): Heredity, or: Revisiting the Facts of Life. In Yanagisako, Sylvia and Carol Delaney: Naturalizing Power. Essays in Feminist Cultural Analysis. New York- London: Routledge. Pp. 69-86.

Pallotta-Chiarolli, Maria, Peter Haydon and Anne Hunter (2013): These Are Our Children: Polyamorous Parenting. In Goldberg, Abbie E. and Katherine R. Allen eds.: LGBT-Parent Families. Innovations in Research and Implications for Practice. New York – Heidelberg – Dordrecht – London: Springer. Pp. 117-133.

12. March 27th 2017 Student presentations, further discussion This class is reserved for student presentations not linked to topics discussed on previous classes. Depending on the available time, students can also suggest topics, readings and/or short documentaries for this session.

April 3rd 2017 final term paper due

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