Future of Monogamy and Nonmonogamy? An ethnographic approach of the emergence of “polyamour” in french speaking Europe.
(2014) International Academic Polyamory Conference: 2014 Feb 21-23; — Location: Berkeley, CALIF. (21.February.2014)
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- Abstract
- As shown by several sociodemographic studies, in most western European countries for the last decades, the marriage rates have been significantly decreasing and the divorce rates have been significantly increasing. The rates of birth outside wedlock are now close to the rate of birth inside wedlock. These societies are now showing a multiplication of family configurations and a diversification of conjugal life courses (Widmer 2010; Bozon 2008). All together, these phenomena lead several sociologists and anthropologists to consider our societies are now facing a change in their kinship practices (Godelier 2004). In order to explain these mass phenomena, we’ve been studying a marginal emerging phenomenon, in Belgium, France and Switzerland (French speaking Europe) called “polyamour”. The choice of this topic is partly due to the fact that, on a vernacular level, “polyamour” introduces itself as an alternative to usual couple life in these countries. Through polyamorists’ life course studies, and through observations of polyamorists’ way of life, we’ve extracted social and cultural factors affecting the practice and the making sense of relationships leading to consensual non monogamy. So far, the study lead us to deconstruct anthropological concept such as “marriage” or “kinship” and to divide them into anthropological sub-phenomena, in order to understand and explain how changes in the cultural and material environments of populations are affecting attachment processes, sexual practices, settlement forms and parenthood practices among individuals. Our analysis (in progress) show that several cultural factors, such as an ongoing competition between conflicting ideological values in society or such as access to technologies in the field of communication and reproduction, reshape the making sense of the relationship.
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Wauthier, P.-Y. (2014). Future of Monogamy and Nonmonogamy? An ethnographic approach of the emergence of “polyamour” in french speaking Europe. International Academic Polyamory Conference: 2014 Feb 21-23;, Berkeley, CALIF.