"Difficult Attachments brilliantly theorizes the necessity for kinship studies to move beyond cultural and theoretical ideals about kinship to encompass kinship’s everyday realities. In the space of this expanded vision, this groundbreaking volume offers rich accounts of the complexities of lived experiences of kinship: the contingencies as much as the unconditional solidarity, the violence and conflict as much as the love and nurturance, and the hierarchies of power as much as the mutuality of being."— Susan McKinnon, co-editor of Vital Relations: Modernity and the Persistent Life of Kinship
"This arresting and highly welcome collection provides a long-overdue, sustained scrutiny of the so-called 'negative' aspects of kinship. Envy, disappointments, dislike, disconnection—as well as more extreme manifestations documented here—are, the authors argue, constitutive of kinship rather than its negation. Decentring kinship ideals from its definition and analysis, these rich and provocative essays demonstrate the productivity of writing against the grain, and chart new pathways for kinship studies."— Janet Carsten, co-editor of Marriage in Past, Present and Future Tense
"Difficult Attachments brilliantly theorizes the necessity for kinship studies to move beyond cultural and theoretical ideals about kinship to encompass kinship’s everyday realities. In the space of this expanded vision, this groundbreaking volume offers rich accounts of the complexities of lived experiences of kinship: the contingencies as much as the unconditional solidarity, the violence and conflict as much as the love and nurturance, and the hierarchies of power as much as the mutuality of being."— Susan McKinnon, co-editor of Vital Relations: Modernity and the Persistent Life of Kinship
"Difficult Attachments brilliantly theorizes the necessity for kinship studies to move beyond cultural and theoretical ideals about kinship to encompass kinship’s everyday realities. In the space of this expanded vision, this groundbreaking volume offers rich accounts of the complexities of lived experiences of kinship: the contingencies as much as the unconditional solidarity, the violence and conflict as much as the love and nurturance, and the hierarchies of power as much as the mutuality of being."— Susan McKinnon, co-editor of Vital Relations: Modernity and the Persistent Life of Kinship
"This arresting and highly welcome collection provides a long-overdue, sustained scrutiny of the so-called 'negative' aspects of kinship. Envy, disappointments, dislike, disconnection—as well as more extreme manifestations documented here—are, the authors argue, constitutive of kinship rather than its negation. Decentring kinship ideals from its definition and analysis, these rich and provocative essays demonstrate the productivity of writing against the grain, and chart new pathways for kinship studies."— Janet Carsten, co-editor of Marriage in Past, Present and Future Tense
