Reconfiguring Family: the Politics of Love
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Reconfiguring family: the politics of love Michelle Elmitt Master of Communication (Research) University of Canberra December, 2012 i Abstract This is a study that investigates what happens when people are unexpectedly thrown together to live the life of a family. Based on field research, the study explores the ways adults are performing in loving relationships with non-biological children in contemporary Australia. I have sought to examine how people are making these relationships intelligible when language does not always allow articulation of the intersecting lines of desire, conflict and loss that they bring. This involved analysing ten face-to-face interviews and interpreting the emotional and psycho-social phenomena they revealed through a creative writing process. Key to both the analysis and the creative work has been my engagement with Judith Butler’s work and in particular her book Antigone's Claim: Kinship Between Life and Death (2000). Butler’s writings have helped me discover tensions and ambiguities when relationships form amid a current of opposing discourses, in a society that persists in privileging the nuclear family model. Her concept of performativity provides a means of understanding why each family is doing things differently. These texts have helped me to think through radical possibilities in the cultural intelligibility of kinship. The dissertation package includes three items: an essay providing discursive analysis of the fieldwork (ten interviews with adults parenting children in step, adoptive or blended living arrangements), a novella on these same themes, and ten short stories (each of the latter correlating to one interview and written with a specific eye to that interview’s impact upon this researcher). I have chosen to use discourse analysis to review my fieldwork archive as it is a way to capture the effects of the many power-plays that influence this group of people. The interviews involved responses to questions about family rituals on the grounds that ritual plays a large part in a subject’s organisation of emotional and social life by allowing for the integration of psychological and cultural elements. It was my intention that such a focus would cast some light on the way processes of love and aspects of the unconscious interact. The creative writing methodology, on the other hand, allowed me both to work through some of the more immeasurable emotional phenomena, and to highlight moments of conflict, confusion and ambiguity revealed in the analysis. iii The findings were revealing in that, while these relationships can be confusing and fragile, people are reworking discourses to find ways of making loving kinship relationships intelligible. The two discourses of most interest were those of: “Meritorious parenting,” where adults hyper-performed in roles in an effort to earn the right to a parental position unproblematically attributed those in a nuclear family, and of “one big family”, where non-related groups of people interacted to meet the needs commonly ascribed to family. Just as Antigone’s Claim anticipates a social revision of kinship — where the unwritten rules are examined and new possibilities of fulfilling family relationships can emerge — this fieldwork supports theory in Adoption scholarship and Queer theory that find possibilities of love between adults and non- biological children outside of hegemonic discourses. iv Acknowledgements To Associate Professor Paul Magee for his consistent support and advice during two challenging and rewarding years. To Dr Affrica Taylor and Dr Jordan Williams for making time for consultations. To my four fantastic children/ critics. To my own “big family.” vii Table of contents Part 1 Novella: Out in the Sea………………………………………………………………………………………………1 Part 2 Exegesis: ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..35 Introduction: “Fragile, porous and expansive” kinship ……………………………………………...35 I.1 Research questions..…………………………………………………………………………………........35 I.2 The outline of this project and the exegesis …………………………………………………....37 I.3 About love .…………………………………………………………………………………………………....40 I.4 Kinship against love ……………………………………………………………………………………....46 I.5 Judith Butler and current kinship …………………………………………………………………..53 I.6 Personal connections …………………………………………………………………………………….60 Chapter One: “New schemes of intelligibility”……………………………………………………………65 1.1 Methodology………………………………………………………………………………………………..66 1.2 Discourse theory……………………………………………………………………………………….....69 1.3 The concept of performativity…………………………………………………………………........73 1.4 The theory and the project……………………………………………………………………………76 1.5 Conclusions………………………………………………………………………………………………….80 Chapter Two: Biogenetic superiority…………………………………………………………………...........83 2.1 “The biogenetic basis of adult-child bonds.”…………………………………………………...84 2.2 The family line …………………………………………………………………………………………….90 2.3 Social regulatory discourses, physical affection and sexual taboos….………..….....95 2.4 Role-playing and the theatrical metaphor………………………….....................................101 Chapter Three: “That beautiful embrace” ……………………………………………………………….109 3.1 Meritorious parenting………………………………………………………………………………..109 3.2 “One big family” ………………………………………………………………………………………...114 3.3 Dreams and magical thinking .……………………………………………………………………118 3.4 Transformative events……………………………………………………………………………….123 Chapter Four/ Discussion: “Who knows when you may need the help of a fellow human?” ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………….127 4.1 Theory as analysis .............…………………………………………………………………………....127 4.2 Australasian literature as analysis ..………………………………………………………….....129 4.3 Creative process rationale ……………………………………………………………………........142 4.4. Concluding thoughts………………………………………………………………………………….146 ix References .......................................................................................................................................................149 Bibliography ...................................................................................................................................................152 Part 3 Collection of short stories ....................................................................................................................155 1: The Wedding ………………………………………………………………………………………………….....155 2: Sometimes ……………………………………………………………………………………………………......161 3: You Should Read It ………………………………………………………………………………………….....167 4: It’s Happened Before ……………………………………………………………………………………........173 5: The Patterns of the Vines…………………………………………………………………………………....179 6: I Hate Gossip ………………………………………………………………………………………………….....189 7: At Dad’s …………………………………………………………………………………………………………....199 8: The Chickens ………………………………………………………………………………………………….....207 9: Beach Cricket ………………………………………………………………………………………………….....213 10: Says It All ………………………………………………………………………………………………………...223 x Out in the Sea She crouches down on the river bank swirling the brown water: fast, and then slowly, always anticlockwise. Her small hand is invisible beneath the surface of the thick, chocolaty water. Absorbed, Eske lets her fingers flick up bits of mud and sand; sometimes she feels hardness and sharp stone edges. Always she keeps the same alternating rhythm — scooping big, then small circles. She remains there for a long time, squatting by the water’s edge. A man’s pale face is repeatedly reflected in the shimmer of the water. He stands still, peering over her, waiting. 1. Eske rearranged the collection of stones on her dressing table according to shape. She began the line with the smooth, round, black stones, and then she placed the bigger, clumpier ones beside them. She wasn’t satisfied with the design or the dullness of the stones. The effect they made displayed on her small table was irritating; it was nothing like the magic of the river-scape she had imagined. She took the biggest, roughest stone, which still had traces of mud in the crevices, and threw it forcefully through the small gap left by her open window. She heard it thud onto the lawn and then she threw another stone. The third stone missed the gap and crashed against the glass pane. The window didn’t break but she heard her parents, outside the kitchen, stop talking. There was a long silence and she stood still and waited, but nothing came of it, so she went back to her task of ridding the room of the stones. Eske could hear her mother’s voice getting louder as she kept telling Jack she wanted to have a party. Eske watched another stone thud onto the lawn and waited, hoping to hear Jack’s footsteps coming down the hall. She wanted him to take her down to the river. 1 “Well if you’d said you wanted a party back when I was trying to plan one I would have timed the trip differently. There’s a lot I have to do before we can have people here. Look at the place.” Jack said. “I didn’t want a party but I have to have one,” Sylvana said. She waited for him to speak but Jack was pacing and touching the overgrown plants in the yard. “You told me I freeze people out,” she said. “You’re confusing what I said,” Jack said, snapping off a dead branch then turning to walk inside. “Well, we have to have friends, don’t we?” she said. “I noticed you haven’t put your sister on the list.” “They wouldn’t come. They won’t travel. There’d be some excuse...” Eske hit the pane again and the jarring sound made Jack jump. “Well if we are having a party I better get started now,” he said, turning his back on her and walking quickly towards Eske’s bedroom. Jack had been thinking of