The Research Project

Overview

Over the last two decades, researchers have documented an increasing prevalence of multiple-partner families in North America and Western Europe. These families are marked by the practice of permitting any individual irrespective of their sex or gender an opportunity to enter into multiple affective, sexual, or otherwise intimate relationships. Such families are also formed through the open negotiation of partnership requirements, such as resource sharing, various care- and kin-work, as well as desired intimacies.

Research on these non-monogamous families is scant. As such, there is a considerable gap in the literature exploring why families in North America and Western Europe are undertaking these non-normative family practices. Drawing on the rich corpus of social scientific research that argues for the examination of kinship structures as adaptive strategies, this research project seeks to understand how polyqueer family formations may be linked to transformations in larger social, political, economic, or legal processes. More specifically, the study asks how are polyqueer families establishing and coordinating the practices of their relationships? How do these practices articulate with the social, economic, political, and legal experiences of polyqueer family members? And to what extent are these experiences influenced by intersectional (e.g., race, gender, class) projects of subject formation.

This research project aims to influence the development of social policies that ultimately nurture and support the growth of non-monogamous families.

Ethics approval received from the University of Calgary’s Internal Review Board.

Click here for the ethics certificate.