Kinship Reimagined, Justice and Transformative Futures (Part I)

Sen, Rukmini

In the age of the Anthropocene, what is the place of a reimagined kinship? In the last two decades there have been very specific transformations in kinship studies where Janet Carston (2004) or Pushpesh Kumar (2022) have spoken about 'making kinship', connected to Donna Haraway (2003) propagating the 'companion' to Govindarajan (2018) proposing human-animal intimacies. The broader political and economic development of societies, increasing migration and capital flows across the world are intrinsically connected with the way kinship was transformed. Laws, policies and justice systems also undergo a transformation with kinship reimagined, either in support of chosen kins or in resistance.

This panel invites papers from scholars working in the interdisciplinary areas of kinship, development and the challenges to the anthropocene. At a time when there is an interest in queer and human-non-human kinships, it is indeed relevant to engage with anthropological works of pastoral communities, of sociological work among people who live in queer communes, of certain practices of urban living closer to nature. Making kins, choosing specific kinds of living arrangements, going child free as a response to the wider ecological transformations are all social phenomena operating across nationalities or religion. While heterosexual marriage is the most legally sanctioned form of kinship, various indigenous folklores validate mutual care and accountability between multi-species. This tussle between the legal and its outside is central to the reimagination of kinship, which this panel intends to explore.

Session Organizer:

Rukmini SEN, Dr B R Ambedkar University Delhi, India

Oral Presentations

Migration and Its Impact on Rural Women: A Sociological Study
Dr. Shivani RAI, Maharaja Chhatrasal Bundelkhand University, India

Intersecting Injustice: Race, Gender, and the Criminalization of Women of Color in New York Family Court
Nina PARSEE, Columbia University Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, USA

Kinship and Transformations in Law: An Assessment of Ten Years of Indian Jurisprudence
Rukmini SEN, Dr B R Ambedkar University Delhi, India

Labors of Love: Sex, Care, and Migration in Bangalore
Gowri VIJAYAKUMAR, USA

Distributed Papers

Invoking Idioms of Kinship in Women’s Movements in South Asia: Towards an Intergenerational Feminist Future
Deepta CHOPRA CHOPRA, Institute of Development Studies, United Kingdom; Priya RAGHAVAN, United Kingdom; Maheen SULTAN, BRAC Institute of Governance and Development, Bangladesh; Mona SHERPA, CARE Nepal, Nepal; Mubashira ZAIDI, Institute of Social Studies trust, India, India

Family and Caste in Transition: Intergenerational Conceptions of Marriage and Choice
Jahnvi DWIVEDI, Dr. B.R. Ambedkar University, Delhi, India

Patriarchy Index in South and Southeast Asian Countries: A Quantitative Approach
Abhishek SINGH, International Institute for Population Sciences, India; Wahengbam Bigyananda MEITEI, GENDER Project, India; Ajit Kumar KANNAUJIYA, Karnataka Health Promotion Trust, India; Kaushalendra KUMAR, International Institute for Population Sciences, India; Lotus MCDOUGAL, University of California San Diego, USA; Katherine HAY, University of California San Diego, USA; Christophe Z GUILMOTO, IRD/CEPED, France

See more of: RC09 Social Transformations and Sociology of Development
See more of: RC32 Women, Gender and Society
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