Studying the Complex Dynamics of Family Relationships: A Figurational Approach

Abstract

In this paper, we present a figurational approach to studying family relationships drawing from Norbert Elias's notion of figuration that combines insider and outsider perspectives to complex relational dynamics. In recent discussions on intimacy and personal lives, the family has been viewed as a subset of any personal relationships despite the structural dynamics of, for example, gender and generation that are at play within families. On the other hand, it has been claimed that a family has a special dynamic of its own that requires a ‘language of family’. In this paper, we present a figurational approach for studying family relationships both as personally lived and as embedded in wider webs of relationships. The proposed approach combines qualitative insight drawn from interviews and a systematic mapping of significant webs of relationships that both constrain and enable people. Combining these two aspects highlights the complex family dynamics and lived ambivalences between personal affinities and relational expectations. The paper draws from empirical studies in which significant life events, including marriage and biographical disruptions, such as loss, divorce and illness, reconfigure people's lives and selves, highlighting the contemporary complexity of families and personal relationships. The article develops relational methodology, addressing the ‘middle ground’ of relations to bring together the personal and the more structural aspects of family dynamics that phases of biographical change make visible.