No abstract

The meaning of kinship received little sustained attention for some time in British sociology. However, we are now beginning to see a shift, and Jennifer Mason's (2008) conceptualisation of kinship affinities makes an important contribution to emerging debates. In this article I seek to add to such debates and also provide original data from the field of donor conception and lesbian motherhood, a particularly rich field in which to explore the meaning of kin. I investigate stories about becoming parents, and demonstrate that the issue of bringing kinship into being is a key concern in that process. I develop the argument that kinship is a multilayered and malleable resource with an exceptional capacity to encompass difference. This leads me to suggest that we need to be sensitive to the multitude, shifting ways in which connectedness is experienced in personal life.

A B S T R AC TFamily resemblances and connectedness constitute a recent interest in sociological debate. This article seeks to build on and expand this debate by empirically exploring the meaning of physical family resemblances in the context of lesbian donor conception. This constitutes a neglected area as previous studies primarily explore gamete donation and physical resemblances in the context of heterosexual assisted conception. Considerably less attention has been paid to the specific dynamics inherent to lesbian donor conception. The article draws on a qualitative study comprising 25 lesbian couples in England and Wales with experiences of pursuing both self-arranged and clinical donor conception in the context of a lesbian couple relationship. Building on work in the area of kin, connectedness and family resemblance, this article argues that seeking resemblances can be as much about creating distance as connectedness in the context of lesbian couple donor conception. K E Y WO R D Sconnectedness / donor conception / donor 'matching' / family legitimacy / family resemblances / genotypes/phenotypes / lesbian

Donor conception challenges conventional kinship idioms: the involvement of a gamete donor culturally raises questions about parentage and also the meaning of genetic heritage. Although there is now a growing body of literature exploring how people resorting to donor conception negotiate kinship and connectedness, this predominantly focuses on heterosexual couples. Little is yet known about how lesbian couples navigate these processes. This paper builds on a qualitative interview study comprising 25 lesbian couples in England and Wales with experiences of pursuing donor conception in the context of their couple relationship to explore how these couples negotiate the contribution of the donor. It explores how couples negotiate meanings of parenthood, genetic origins and the bodily process of conception. The paper argues that lesbian couples negotiate parental identities, biogenetic relationships and also the meaning of conception by disassembling and reassembling the meaning of kinship, parenthood, creation, origin and originator. Findings suggest that lesbian couples weave together old and new understandings of relatedness in complex patterns and that this enables them to assert authority as parents.

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.

This article adds to debates about intimate life in non-heterosexual relationships and the concept of 'families of choice' by exploring lesbian couples' understandings of becoming and being a family through donor conception. Drawing on a study comprising 25 lesbian couples in England and Wales who pursued parenthood together using donor sperm, it explores the constructions of family connections as they emerge in couples' accounts about donor selection and ethnicity/'race', siblinghood, surnames and civil partnerships. Asking how far the concept of 'families of choice' accounts for contemporary same-sex intimate practices, the article highlights the complex interplay between privilege and under-privilege in the couples' narratives of conception. It argues that traditional intimate values are emerging as significant in shaping how this community of same-sex couples understand, imagine and construct their intimate lives.

A growing body of literature investigates heterosexual donor conception and there is now also a small body of work which investigates the experiences of single women and lesbian couples. Both of these focus on a clinical setting. Women, notably single and lesbians, also undertake non-clinical donor conception, and insufficient consideration has been paid to these self-arranged reproductive practices, and how they may compare with the clinical ones. Seeking to fill this gap, this paper explores women's experiences of accessing donor sperm inside and outside reproductive health clinics by drawing on a qualitative interview study with 25 lesbian couples in England and Wales with experiences of jointly pursuing donor conception. The paper explores the differences embedded in the two conception routes with regard to donor recruitment, access to donor sperm over time, space and the management of sperm as a bodily fluid. Utilising the framework of 'ontological choreography' developed by Thompson (2005), as well as Douglas's (1966) work around bodies, dirt and disgust, the paper argues that the clinic functions as a containment for legal as well as practical and bodily dimensions of donor conception, and this in turn shapes practices and perceptions of self-arranged conception.

Assisted conception involving donor insemination challenges cultural idioms of parenthood and family; there is now a growing body of work exploring how women and couples negotiate becoming a family in this way. But sperm donation also raises questions on the more intimate levels of sex, sexuality and sexual bodies, and these have received little sustained attention in the literature. Lesbian couples in the U.K. increasingly negotiate access to medicalised donor insemination, but many also conceive in informal arrangements with donors where they themselves negotiate proximity and contact with donors when retrieving donor sperm. I explore in this paper how lesbian couples manage and perceive sperm donations, how they seek to negotiate their intimate, sexual and bodily overtones, and how the medical and non-medical settings enable them to do this in different ways. I draw on empirical data from an interview study conducted from 2006 to 2009 in England and Wales comprising 25 lesbian couples. I suggest that sperm donation raises dilemmas of intimacy for lesbian couples, and that couples try to resolve such dilemmas by carefully and intentionally choreographing donation events through managing patterns of movement and action. The different institutional, medical and regulatory frameworks governing clinical and non-clinical sperm donation shape that management in significant and different ways. I argue that sperm donation choreographies enable couples to negotiate the private, sexual and intimate tensions surrounding sperm donations, and also the subjectivity of the sperm donor.