Abstract
This article is concerned with exploring how ideas about genes and genetic relationships are rendered meaningful in everyday life. David Morgan’s concept family practices has significantly shaped sociological enquiries into family lives in recent decades. It represents an important step away from a sociological focus on family as something you ‘are’ to family as something you ‘do’. With a focus on family as a set of activities, it however functions less well to capture more discursive dimensions of family life. Combining a focus on family as practice with an attention to discourse, the article concentrates specifically on ‘genetic thinking’ – the process through which genetic relationships are rendered meaningful in everyday family living. The study draws on original data from a study about families formed through donor conception, and the impact of such conception on family relationships, to show that genetic thinking is a salient part of contemporary family living. The article explores the everyday, normative assumptions, nuances and understandings about genetic relationships by exploring five dimensions: having a child; everyday family living; family resemblances; traits being ‘passed on’; and family members working out accountability and responsibility within the family. Showing the significance of genetic thinking in family life, the article argues for a more sustained sociological debate about the impact of such thinking within contemporary family life. The article also argues for the need to develop a sociological gaze more sensitive to the relationship between family as a set of activities and the feelings, imaginations, dreams or claims with which they are entwined.
Highlights
David Morgan’s Family Connections: An Introduction to Family Studies (1996) has significantly shaped the development of sociological thinking about families and relationships in Britain in recent decades
What do we see if we instead focus our gaze on the shadowy background of normality to which these departures implicitly refer but do not speak of directly? What assumptions, nuances and understandings about genetic relationships might we discover if we shine the light on the unspoken ideas at play here, making them the explicit focus of analysis, rather than looking at the departures? And if we did so, what would that tell us about genetic thinking and how it shapes and underscores not just families that diverge from the norm, but family relationships in general? What might that, in turn, tell us about the relationship between genetic discourse and family practice?
The contribution of this article lies in its suggestion that genetic thinking shapes everyday family life, and its analysis of when and how genetic thinking is rendered meaningful
Summary
David Morgan’s Family Connections: An Introduction to Family Studies (1996) has significantly shaped the development of sociological thinking about families and relationships in Britain in recent decades. It seeks to bring an analysis of genetic thinking to the field of sociological studies of families and relationships. It draws on this analysis to reflect on the role of genetic thinking in contemporary everyday life, as well as the relationship between family discourse and family practice.
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