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.

Relational Persons and Relational Processes: Developing the Notion of Relationality for the Sociology of Personal Life

“…An earlier parallel move had been implicitly made by US anthropologist Weston (1991) who explored the practices and meanings by which lesbians and gay men were creating 'families of choice'. Carsten (2004) outlines a longer term transformation within anthropology from the study of kinship structures to a concern with 'relatedness' which Smart (2007) sees as similar to that which has led to the new paradigm of personal life in sociology. We would also emphasize the foundational contribution of Strathern (1992).…”

“… 11. For examples of how relational thinking about personal life might be worked with methodologically, see Roseneil (2009) and Castrén and Ketokivi (forthcoming). …”

Towards a theorization of the relationship between poverty and family

“…The idea of “family practices” as developed in the work of David Morgan () is helpful in directing attention to the ways that family members organize their lives and the manner in which they “enact” (i.e., perform and live out) family life, family roles, and family relationships in everyday settings. This work tends to distance itself from the idea of “the family” as a reified or static entity, and foregrounds variations in the meaning of close kin‐based relationships, the relational character of family phenomena, and the ways in which relationships are understood and lived, instead of taking institutions or cultural systems as fixed (Castrén & Ketokivi, ; Ribbens McCarthy, ). This perspective has not been specifically developed or applied in the context of poverty or low income, but there are several ways in which it is helpful in developing understanding of the phenomena being explored in this article.…”

The Order of Human Interdependencies: Simulating Elias’ One-level Multi-person Models

“…He also formulated a distinct view of social life (Castrèn and Ketokivi, 2015; Elias, 2012b; Moore, 2010). Elias theorized social life as a network of interdependencies between people.…”