Family and Families

Dr. Moeata Keil

moeata.keil@auckland.ac.nz
Exercise - draw a stick
figure picture to
represent your family

 How much diversity is there

in the size and shape of
your families?
 Who have you included and
excluded from your picture?
 On what basis did you
include/exclude people?
What criteria did you use?
 What implicit
understandings of “family”
did you draw on to create
your picture
My Family – a subjective
definition
Intimacy is key

• Affective interactions

• Caring, sharing, physical closeness, love,

deep understanding

• Privileged knowledge

• Mutual self-disclosure
Objective definitions

Focus on family ties formed through:

 ‘Blood’ or biological connections:
Consanguinity – family ties based on biological
connections i.e. descent. E.g. parents, siblings, children
… etc.
 The law:
Affinal – kinship ties formed through the law, i.e.
marriage, adoption. E.g. husband and wife, father-in-
law.
 Statistics New Zealand
Familial relationship
 A relationship in which a person is related to another
person by blood, registered marriage, civil union,
consensual union, fostering or adoption.

Non-familial relationship
 In a non-familial relationship, a person is not related to
another person in the relationship by birth/biology,
registered marriage, civil union, de facto relationship,
fostering, or adoption.
The NZ Statistical Family
“A family nucleus comprises a couple
with or without child(ren), or one
parent and their child(ren) whose usual
residence is in the same household; the
children do not have partners or
children of their own living in that
household.” (Statistics New Zealand,
2018)
What are some of the implications of
the definition of the ‘statistical family’?

 related people who are not in a couple or

parent-child relationship e.g. cousins
 extended family
 Grandparent-grandchildren relationships
 biological children who do not co-reside
with their parents and/or siblings
 satellite families: couples who live apart,
but still together
 Can you think of any more?
My family – an objective
definition

A nuclear family:
Married couple with
two dependent children.
United Nations – definitions

Family is “any combination of two or more

persons who are bound together by ties of
mutual consent, birth and/or adoption or
placement and who, together, assume
responsibility for, [amongst other things],
the care and maintenance of group
members, the addition of new members
through procreation or adoption, the
socialization of children, and the social
control of members.”
Family as an institution
 ‘family’ as a noun and a verb
 ‘doing’ of family
 family is performative
 family as an institution shapes
how we consequently perform
and practice family
 our doing of family is
ideologically and institutionally
influenced
Kellogg's
family
 Bourgeois or traditional
nuclear family: married
heterosexual couple with
2 children (preferably, a
boy and a girl), living
together
 Eurocentric ideal
 How do this ideal
stigmatise or marignalise
other family forms – and
cultural variations of
family?
Concluding Questions

 Thinking about the family you drew, what is the

family that you live with and the one you live by?

 How does ‘family’ operate ideologically in your

minds? What are your hopes, dreams and desires
for your family life? What informs these
aspirations?