Social Resilience and PolyQueer Families
What is social resilience?
The term social resilience refers to our ability to address crises and forms of adversity in ways that are locally meaningful.
While some may view social resilience as an inherent or inborn capacity of a particular individual, others recognize its relational quality. That is, they recognize that social resilience is something that we learn, teach, and perform with others.
This relational understanding emphasizes the importance of families to our capacity to enact social resilience. For example, it is in our families where we learn and teach about such things as the types of people, organizations, and institutions that we can rely upon, as well as the specific resources that we can draw upon.
More than this, families are themselves important resources — socially, politically, or economically — that we can reach out to, in moments of crisis or adversity.
Who are the PolyQueer?
In her book, Beyond Monogamy, Mimi Schippers (2016) uses the term polyqueer to refer to the potential ability of multiple-partner families to transform hegemonic structures. She suggests that through relational multiplicity, polyqueer families have the opportunity to breakdown systemic barriers of racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, etc., and create more equitable partnerships.
While Schippers’s conception of the polyqueer focuses predominantly on triads or throuples (3-partner families) and centers sexual intimacy, I broaden the concept by focusing on all those in multiple-partner families or relationships regardless of their type of intimacy, but who are nonetheless committed to ending forms of systemic oppression.
The polyqueer are thus a radical form of relational practice committed to more equitable futures.
The Research Project
Overview:
To varying degrees, we will each experience and suffer from numerous crises and adversities throughout our lives. These “troubles” may develop internally (e.g., ailing physical or mental health), externally (social oppression, stigmatization, unemployment, or financial hardship), or through some combination of the two. While many perceive a lone individual fighting against such troubles, this perception often distorts reality and our immersion within social networks that buffers our social resilience by providing necessary social, political, and economic support to tackle moments crisis and adversity. In short, our troubles are always relational and we are immersed in social networks that aid our social resilience.
Whether biological, chosen, or otherwise constructed, our families are a type of social network that offers important resources for working through troubling times. These networks provide us with a sense of belonging, nurturance, enculturation and socialization, economic support, and even forms of protection. On a day-to-day basis, families engage in relatively stable patterns of social interaction that become so mundane that we may not even recognize how we both provide and draw upon such important resources.
In this research project, I am interested in recovering these relational troubles of PolyQueer families and the types of social resilience their family structure(s) afford them. More specifically, I aim to explore (1) the types of troubles that members of PolyQueer families face; (2) how the social networks of PolyQueer families equip their members with resources and forms of support necessary to address the various troubles that develop in everyday life; and (3) the degree to which these experiences are informed by the intersecting social locations of race, gender, class, ability, and sexual orientation.
This research project is funded in part by the Sociologists for Women in Society, and will result in the production of publicly available reports on the social resilience of polyamorous families. These reports will be disseminated across polyamorous community organizations throughout Canada and the United States.
This project has received ethics approval from the University of Calgary’s Internal Review Board. Click here for the ethics certificate.
The Principal Investigator for this project is Dr. Pallavi Banerjee
RECRUITMENT FOR THIS PROJECT HAS CLOSED.
A big thank you to all those who reached out to participate! Findings for this project will be disseminated publicly in 2022.
Interested in volunteering for other poly-related projects? Check out my doctoral research: Writing PolyQueer Worlds
Please consider volunteering as a participant if you
*Are at least 18 years of age
*Are polyamorous or otherwise non-monogamous
All interviews will be conducted in English.
Your participation will contribute significantly to the success of this project, the advancement of social and academic understanding of multiple-partner families, and the development of social policies and materials that will positively impact the lives of polyamorous or otherwise non-monogamous families like yours!
Be a part of the Writing PolyQueer Worlds!
Do you want to help improve the lives of multiple-partner families in Canada?
Do you want to see meaningful change in the way society approaches multiple-partner families?
Be a Part of Socially transformative research
If you are at least 18 years old, identify as polyamorous or otherwise non-monogamous, and reside in Canada, check out the Writing PolyQueer Worlds research study and be a part of socially transformative research:
