Paper short abstract:

What is the subversive impediment of public in/visibility of LGBT relationships with children in the context of Poland? We would like to discuss the impending willfulness of such struggles in (re)doing family belonging, forming alliances, and (re)defining discursive fields of anthropology.

Paper long abstract:

What is the subversive impediment of public visibility of LGBT relationships with children in the specific context of Poland/Eastern Europe? Can we talk about any revolutionary potential in 'redoing family', without the public coming out? What is the political valance of 'public (in)visibility'? We would like to discuss the impending willfulness of such struggles in (re)doing family belonging, forming alliances, and (re)defining discursive fields of anthropology. We propose to read the coming outs of the LGBT families with children as a collective (in/out-group) processes, informed by internal family dynamics, inherent ambiguities of being out (or in) of the closet (and not only motivated by the external, political factors). Our focus is on the following:

[1] Queering potential of 'Central-Eastern European LGBT kinship studies' to broaden anthropological perspectives on social relatedness. Could studies on non-normative relationships outside the dominating Anglophone epistemological scope of kinship studies broad our existing anthropological perspectives?

[2] 'Intimacy activism' as possibly new(?) framework of 'queer activism' in Poland. Could we term the effects of practicing visibility/invisibility binary as 'queer', rooted in the particular local context of mid-2000s Poland/Eastern Europe?

The presentation draws on biographical interviewing's findings from the ongoing project "Families of choice in Poland" (PI: Dr hab. J. Mizielińska).