How children of separated parents view their new post-divorce family?
(2021) 15th ESA Conference 2021 - RN13 Sociology of families and intimate lives — Location: Barcelona, Spain (31.August.2021)
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- Abstract
- In the context of everchanging family configurations, this paper focuses on children of separated parents’ conceptions of what their family is. It is based on an ongoing research project entitled MobileKids: Children in Multi-Local, Post-Separation Families (ERC Starting Grant project – supervision: Prof. Laura Merla) which seeks to understand how the lives of children are affected by divorce, mobility and multilocality in the context of shared custody arrangements, and how children accommodate to this family situation. Moreover, as children’s own accounts and experiences of contemporary changes have largely been overlooked up to now, this project considers children as active social actors that can, to various extents, exercise agency and influence on their own lives as well as on the lives of the people surrounding them, while being constrained by institutions. Based on the analysis of in-depth qualitative interviews – through the mobilization of creative, visual and participatory methods (Socio-Spatial Network Game & Relational Maps) – with over 8 children (ongoing fieldwork) aged 10 to 16 in Belgium, this paper presents how children in shared physical custody perceive the contours and the substances of their family. Contours, here means the actual people that children consider as being a member of their family. Substance, here refers to the dimensions (values, affects, or practices) that children mobilize to recognize or negotiate the place of each member inside their perceived family – which is particularly of interest in the presence of step-family members.
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Theys, C. (2021). How children of separated parents view their new post-divorce family? 15th ESA Conference 2021 - RN13 Sociology of families and intimate lives, Barcelona, Spain. https://hdl.handle.net/2078.5/110900