Palgrave Studies in Mediating Kinship, Representation, and Difference – serie

This volume aims to address kinship in the context of global mobility, while studying the effects of technological developments throughout the 20th century on how individuals and communities engage in real or imagined relationships. Using literary representations as a spectrum to examine kinship practices, Lamia Tayeb explores how transnational mobility, bi-culturalism and cosmopolitanism honed, to some extent, the relevant authors’ concerns with the family and wider kinship relations: in these literatures, kinship and the family lose their familiar, taken-for-granted aspect, and yet are still conceived as ‘essential’ spheres of relatedness for uprooted individuals and communities. Tayeb here studies writings by Hanif Kureishi, Zadie Smith, Monica Ali, Jhumpa Lahiri, Khaled Housseini and Nadia Hashimi, working to understand how transnational kinship dynamics operate when moved beyond the traditional notions of the blood relationship, relationship to place and identification with community.

This volume aims to address kinship in the context of global mobility, while studying the effects of technological developments throughout the 20th century on how individuals and communities engage in real or imagined relationships. Using literary representations as a spectrum to examine kinship practices, Lamia Tayeb explores how transnational mobility, bi-culturalism and cosmopolitanism honed, to some extent, the relevant authors’ concerns with the family and wider kinship relations: in these literatures, kinship and the family lose their familiar, taken-for-granted aspect, and yet are still conceived as ‘essential’ spheres of relatedness for uprooted individuals and communities. Tayeb here studies writings by Hanif Kureishi, Zadie Smith, Monica Ali, Jhumpa Lahiri, Khaled Housseini and Nadia Hashimi, working to understand how transnational kinship dynamics operate when moved beyond the traditional notions of the blood relationship, relationship to place and identification with community.

This edited collection brings together two strands of current discussions in gender research through the concept of creativity. First, it addresses creativity in the context of the family, by exploring changing and newly emergent family forms and ways of creating and maintaining intimate relationships. Creativity here is understood not as just “newness or originality,” but as that which, in the words of Eisler and Montouri (2007), “supports, nurtures, and actualizes life by increasing the number of choices open to individuals and communities.” One aim of this book, therefore, is to investigate the social, collaborative, and creative interactions in contemporary family and kin formations in Europe. Second, the volume examines how new media and technologies are entering and shaping everyday family lives. Technological transformations and adaptions have not only enabled the creation of new forms of families and ways of family living, but also challenged the established constellationsof gender and family arrangements. The present volume addresses these issues from multiple perspectives and in different contexts, and explores the involvement of different actors. By problematizing the creativity of becoming and “doing” family and kinship, the authors acknowledge the increasing fluidity of gender identities, the evolving diversity of relationships, and the permeation of technology into daily life.

This edited collection brings together two strands of current discussions in gender research through the concept of creativity. First, it addresses creativity in the context of the family, by exploring changing and newly emergent family forms and ways of creating and maintaining intimate relationships. Creativity here is understood not as just “newness or originality,” but as that which, in the words of Eisler and Montouri (2007), “supports, nurtures, and actualizes life by increasing the number of choices open to individuals and communities.” One aim of this book, therefore, is to investigate the social, collaborative, and creative interactions in contemporary family and kin formations in Europe. Second, the volume examines how new media and technologies are entering and shaping everyday family lives. Technological transformations and adaptions have not only enabled the creation of new forms of families and ways of family living, but also challenged the established constellationsof gender and family arrangements. The present volume addresses these issues from multiple perspectives and in different contexts, and explores the involvement of different actors. By problematizing the creativity of becoming and “doing” family and kinship, the authors acknowledge the increasing fluidity of gender identities, the evolving diversity of relationships, and the permeation of technology into daily life.

This book is a deep dive into the largely unexplored space of BBW “bashes”—multi-day gatherings of fat women and their admirers. Using a range of feminist theories of embodiment and affect, the project is guided by autoethnography and in-depth interviews with twelve participants. Participant experiences are first analyzed with a key focus on experiences that cause grief and disenfranchisement; subsequently, the book looks at experiences that may be radical or revelatory. The book does not seek to either villainize or valorize BBW spaces but instead sheds a bright light on the experience of this cultural subspace and all it may offer to analyses of fat life.

This book is a deep dive into the largely unexplored space of BBW “bashes”—multi-day gatherings of fat women and their admirers. Using a range of feminist theories of embodiment and affect, the project is guided by autoethnography and in-depth interviews with twelve participants. Participant experiences are first analyzed with a key focus on experiences that cause grief and disenfranchisement; subsequently, the book looks at experiences that may be radical or revelatory. The book does not seek to either villainize or valorize BBW spaces but instead sheds a bright light on the experience of this cultural subspace and all it may offer to analyses of fat life.

This volume offers new perspectives on the ways in which migrants use storytelling practices and kinship formations in order to navigate and modify spaces of sovereignty, and thus to re-write narratives portraying them as helpless and passive victims. It provides one of the first investigations that assembles multidisciplinary contributions to look beyond individual acts of migrant agency and toward the entanglements of individual and collective agency, formations of kinship structures, and feelings, expressions, and representations of community and (multiple) belonging(s).The contributions explore the interplay between agency, kinship, and migration from various fields, including sociology, psychology, philosophy, border studies, gender and queer studies, postcolonial studies, ecocriticism, film and media studies, and literary and cultural studies – with a special focus on interdisciplinary narrative theory. They address real and imagined assertions of migrant agency and kinship formations; draw on empirical research, interviews, and accounts of lived experiences; and analyze the role of narrative, media, and technologies in artistic, literary, and cinematic representations of migrant agency and kinship. By probing migrant identity discourses in different cultural and medial contexts, the contributions examine how narratives negotiate and challenge the unequal distribution of mobility, resources, and vulnerability that preconfigures many migrant lives; they also discuss narrative devices, storytelling techniques, and other representational strategies that migrants employ, as well as technologies that they draw on, to lay powerful claims on space and citizenship and to eschew established scripts of victimhood. As such, the volume addresses and embraces the tensions between vulnerability and agency that come to the fore when we try to understand the different ways in which migrants shape, and are shaped by, their (trans)local, material, economic, affective, social, cultural, and political realities.

This volume offers new perspectives on the ways in which migrants use storytelling practices and kinship formations in order to navigate and modify spaces of sovereignty, and thus to re-write narratives portraying them as helpless and passive victims. It provides one of the first investigations that assembles multidisciplinary contributions to look beyond individual acts of migrant agency and toward the entanglements of individual and collective agency, formations of kinship structures, and feelings, expressions, and representations of community and (multiple) belonging(s).The contributions explore the interplay between agency, kinship, and migration from various fields, including sociology, psychology, philosophy, border studies, gender and queer studies, postcolonial studies, ecocriticism, film and media studies, and literary and cultural studies – with a special focus on interdisciplinary narrative theory. They address real and imagined assertions of migrant agency and kinship formations; draw on empirical research, interviews, and accounts of lived experiences; and analyze the role of narrative, media, and technologies in artistic, literary, and cinematic representations of migrant agency and kinship. By probing migrant identity discourses in different cultural and medial contexts, the contributions examine how narratives negotiate and challenge the unequal distribution of mobility, resources, and vulnerability that preconfigures many migrant lives; they also discuss narrative devices, storytelling techniques, and other representational strategies that migrants employ, as well as technologies that they draw on, to lay powerful claims on space and citizenship and to eschew established scripts of victimhood. As such, the volume addresses and embraces the tensions between vulnerability and agency that come to the fore when we try to understand the different ways in which migrants shape, and are shaped by, their (trans)local, material, economic, affective, social, cultural, and political realities.

This book focuses on global mobility and the worldwide articulation of family life, understood as dimensions of social change that come off from the private sphere of individuals and reverberate to the point of transforming the composition of national populations. Delving into the interrelation of migration and life courses, the volume investigates how individual mobility paths are intertwined with family matters and the way population movements are embedded in a myriad of intimate and household affairs. The inquiry is based on qualitative data and specifically focused on the migratory flow between Morocco and Italy through an exploration that encompasses a range of interrelated issues such as: transnational marriages, intimacy, love, daily domestic life, the formation of second generations and citizenship. Providing an exhaustive analysis of such phenomena, the book portrays cultural diversity in a nuanced manner and, in so doing, contributes to de-politicize widely stigmatized traits of migrant families.

This book focuses on global mobility and the worldwide articulation of family life, understood as dimensions of social change that come off from the private sphere of individuals and reverberate to the point of transforming the composition of national populations. Delving into the interrelation of migration and life courses, the volume investigates how individual mobility paths are intertwined with family matters and the way population movements are embedded in a myriad of intimate and household affairs. The inquiry is based on qualitative data and specifically focused on the migratory flow between Morocco and Italy through an exploration that encompasses a range of interrelated issues such as: transnational marriages, intimacy, love, daily domestic life, the formation of second generations and citizenship. Providing an exhaustive analysis of such phenomena, the book portrays cultural diversity in a nuanced manner and, in so doing, contributes to de-politicize widely stigmatized traits of migrant families.

This edited collection provides a critical forum for scholars to examine the evolution of queer kinship—encompassing the wide range of relationships, both biological and nonbiological, that queer individuals choose (or are compelled) to establish—through its representation in literature over time and across cultural contexts. In particular, the ten essays in this collection utilize close readings, philosophy, and theory to address the following question: How can we conceptualize the nature of queer kinship based on its textual representations?To this end, the essays engage with a diverse array of texts, from Buddhist writing to contemporary song lyrics, French literature from the 17th and 18th centuries to contemporary drama and novels from Sweden, Israel, and the Anglosphere. This broad temporal and geographic scope yields new critical insights into the varied ontologies of queer kinship and highlights the inherent paradoxes and fundamental messiness in queer kinship formations across different times, spaces, and contexts. In doing so, the collection makes a significant and timely contribution to the fields of kinship studies, queer studies, and comparative literature.

This edited collection provides a critical forum for scholars to examine the evolution of queer kinship—encompassing the wide range of relationships, both biological and nonbiological, that queer individuals choose (or are compelled) to establish—through its representation in literature over time and across cultural contexts. In particular, the ten essays in this collection utilize close readings, philosophy, and theory to address the following question: How can we conceptualize the nature of queer kinship based on its textual representations?To this end, the essays engage with a diverse array of texts, from Buddhist writing to contemporary song lyrics, French literature from the 17th and 18th centuries to contemporary drama and novels from Sweden, Israel, and the Anglosphere. This broad temporal and geographic scope yields new critical insights into the varied ontologies of queer kinship and highlights the inherent paradoxes and fundamental messiness in queer kinship formations across different times, spaces, and contexts. In doing so, the collection makes a significant and timely contribution to the fields of kinship studies, queer studies, and comparative literature.

From the vantage point of rural grandparents’ mediated structure of feelings, this book explores changing family intimacy and dynamics in contemporary rural China in relation to media. Based on a 10-month ethnography involving 18 rural families (live-in studies with 11), it explores how media technology and culture reconfigures desires, attachments, disappointments, and grievances in family life. This book joins the emerging field that emphasizes the importance of affective and emotional, and offers a new perspective in understanding family dynamics in a mediated world. Focusing on separated migrant families, where the younger generation works in the industrial area and the elderly and children remain in villages, the book highlights the role of mediated emotions in connecting and dividing family members. Importantly, it examines how the state-led neoliberal modernization project since the 1980s juxtaposes with the advance of digital media in rural China, and how it further relates to the rural families.

From the vantage point of rural grandparents’ mediated structure of feelings, this book explores changing family intimacy and dynamics in contemporary rural China in relation to media. Based on a 10-month ethnography involving 18 rural families (live-in studies with 11), it explores how media technology and culture reconfigures desires, attachments, disappointments, and grievances in family life. This book joins the emerging field that emphasizes the importance of affective and emotional, and offers a new perspective in understanding family dynamics in a mediated world. Focusing on separated migrant families, where the younger generation works in the industrial area and the elderly and children remain in villages, the book highlights the role of mediated emotions in connecting and dividing family members. Importantly, it examines how the state-led neoliberal modernization project since the 1980s juxtaposes with the advance of digital media in rural China, and how it further relates to the rural families.

This book analyzes how trees act as mediators of interspecies relationships in popular science writing and creative nonfiction. Making Kin with Trees argues that trees emerge as agents of “arboreal poetics” shaping not only fictional but also material interactions. Following how speculative care practices infuse scientific and poetic texts, formatting practices of reading, sensing, knowing, and communicating (with) trees while affirming both cultural and scientific meaning making processes. This book shows how arboreal thinking connects and might ultimately require breaking down the barrier between fact and fiction, human and plant, onlooker and artwork. This book will be of interest to audiences based in fields including environmental humanities, science and technology studies and ecocriticism, and everyone engaged in science communication and interested in the relationship between scientific fact and narrative.

The Melancholy of Kinship in Post-reform China and Postcolonial Literature, brings post-reform Chinese cultural texts into conversation with postcolonial novels from Africa and Asia to examine the shared experiences of kinship loss as a response to historical trauma, state violence, and socioeconomic dispossession. Looking beyond Eurocentric paradigms of kinship shaped by Western liberalism, structural anthropology, and Freudian-informed psychoanalysis, this book argues that literary and cultural spheres of the Global South are reclaiming kinship as a form of political sociality rooted in decolonial traditions, precisely through mourning its loss. Ultimately, it draws attention to the ways that narratives from the Global South open up new possibilities for emancipation in a postsocialist and postcolonial world marked by enduring and emerging forms of unfreedom.

This book examines how the design of female monsters in science fiction and fantasy roleplaying games positions women’s bodies and behaviors as transgressive, horrific, and threatening. Engaging with established feminist theories related to nonhumanness, transgression, female embodiment, and the horrific, this book unpacks the misogyny embedded in interactive entertainment media and technology in overt, subtle, and intersectional ways. Specifically, utilizing a close reading methodology employing visual and textual analysis of visual design, narrative role, developer commentary, and player reception, this book provides a thorough critical examination of female monsters such as the succubus, siren, broodmother, banshee, harpy, hag, and crone in several games.Through a focus on the archetypes of “maiden,” “mother,” and “crone,” this work reveals how games promote misogynistic beliefs via the design of female monsters related to sexualization and seduction, maternity and pregnancy, and old age and disability; position transgressive women as enemies to be fought and slain by heterosexual male protagonists; and remediate sexist tropes and assumptions that are deeply embedded in mythology, popular culture, the game industry, and gaming culture. In its exploration of the relationship between technology, difference, gender, and monstrosity, this book contributes to feminist media scholarship by highlighting a key problematic in game design that has remained largely unexplored in scholarly and critical writing.