Queering potentials: Negotiations of gender, parenthood, and family in polyamorous relationships in the Netherlands

Abstract

Using a critical feminist perspective, this article provides an ethnographic account of negotiations of gender relations, parenthood, and family in polyamorous relationships in the Netherlands. A conceptual framework is developed and employed to analyze the queering potentials of polyamory by looking at (1) a difference-oriented self, (2) expansion of political community, (3) deconstructions of gender, (4) enduring and unexpected care, and (5) an awareness of existence with people we do not know. Based on a thick description of everyday negotiations, it is argued that the categories of “gender,” “parent,” and “family” are mainly stretched and diffused rather than fundamentally disrupted.

A scoping review of research on polyamory and consensual non‐monogamy: Implications for a more inclusive family science

“…Family theories, which focused on interactions and relationships between partners and family members, tended to take critical approaches. For example, authors used critical feminist and queer theories to interrogate cultural ideologies (e.g., heteronormativity, monocentrism) that presume heterosexuality and monogamy as normal and dominant, and they explored how polyamorous families are queering family and resisting heteronormative pressures and assimilationism (Goldberg et al, 2019; Pain, 2020; Roodsaz, 2021; Sheff, 2006). Some authors have been critically theorizing about non‐monogamous families for several years, including Sheff (2006), who has been challenging monogamous family ideals using creative and critical perspectives since the mid‐2000s.…”

“…A small set of studies ( n = 13) in the sixth category focused on the structure, living arrangements, processes, and experiences of forming, being in, and parenting in a polyamorous family. Polyfamilies vary in structure from small triads to large multifamily systems (Pain, 2020; Roodsaz, 2021; Wauthier, 2022). For instance, a polyfamily could include partners who live together, partners who live away, partners' friends, partners' other partners (also called metamours ), and more (Pain, 2020).…”

“…Researchers explored the extent to which polyamorous families rejected traditional notions of parenting and kinship (Pain, 2020; Roodsaz, 2021). Certainly, polyamorous families challenged heteronormativity through their family practices (e.g., communal living arrangements, creative coparenting agreements, deprioritizing biogenetic relatedness) (Pain, 2020).…”

“…At the same time, their family narratives tended to rely on traditional cultural symbols of family (e.g., the household, parents and children, support), leading Pain (2020) to conclude that queer polyfamilies “do challenge heteronormativity, but not necessarily by rejecting normative understandings of family”—rather, by broadening conventional notions of family (p. 284). Similarly, polyfamilies in Roodsaz's (2021) study stretched the categories of “parent” and “family” (e.g., by expanding definitions to include non‐biological ties) but not necessarily fundamentally disrupt them (e.g., biogenetic ties were still central to their definitions of family). Nonetheless, polyfamilies queered families in many ways.…”

“…Researchers also have examined antecedents (Arter & Bunge, 2023) and outcomes (Balzarini, Dharma, Kohut, Campbell, et al, 2019; Balzarini, Dharma, Kohut, Holmes, et al, 2019) of CNM relational structures, often comparing monogamous relationships to nonmonogamous relationships on various indicators of well‐being. Researchers have explored polyamorous families, including the structures, processes, and experiences of polyamorous (co)parenting and the challenges of navigating institutional spaces (e.g., healthcare, legal systems) that privilege monogamy (Arseneau et al, 2019; Landry et al, 2021; Pain, 2020; Roodsaz, 2021). Studies also have investigated discourses and debates within polyamorous communities, such as community gatekeeping in poly spaces (i.e., judging what “counts” as polyamory) (Johnston, 2022) and tensions in poly activism (Aviram, 2008; Santos, 2019).…”