What is kinning all about?

This Special Issue brings together contributions by scholars working on various family configurations that are not typically discussed together: reproduction using ARTs; mixed marriages; same-sex-headed households; step-families; and intentional parenthood, either with or without genetic links. We have collected ethnographic studies from several Euro-American contexts (Italy, Belgium, UK, USA) and from various family configurations in order to show how kin connections are represented, constructed and deconstructed. In each article, kinship is not taken for granted (ne va pas de soi), and there is a distinct gap between outside observers of the family and internal actors within it. Some of these cases are characterized by the disruption of implicit assumptions about kinship, while others disrupt other implicit assumptions about kinship and nationality. We asked the authors to test whether concepts of kinning and de-kinning were useful in making sense of individual and family strategies, particularly in dealing with situations where “biological” and “legal” ties are missing or where they do not coincide with existing categories of kinship.