Paper short abstract:

This paper demonstrates the value of the concept of « pluri-parenthood » in describing and analyzing the redefinition of gender relationships and parenthood related to new forms of family life. We will specifically investigate the example of French stepfamilies.

Paper long abstract:

This paper will focus on the concept of « pluri-parenthood » in the study of contemporary forms of families (stepfamilies, adoptive families, families built upon Assisted Reproductive Technologies). We will show that this notion allows, in an anthropological and comparative perspective, the description and analysis of different issues that arise in these families about gender, kinship and parenthood.

The notion of « pluri-parenthood » can be applied to diverse configurations that we consider together as producing situations where studying filiations' links (maternal and paternal, only maternal or only paternal) is not sufficient to describe the entire constellation of relationships, actions and actors involved in a child's story.

The contemporary forms of « pluri-parenthood » are characterized by different dimensions, set inside different temporalities of family life and children's stories: the intention of becoming a parent and the quest for « origins », which correspond to the time of « engendering »; the experience of daily parenthood, in the time of childhood, and the action of transmitting (a name, a heritage) which is embedded within the concept of generations. We will specifically examine the case of French stepfamilies to explore how gender relationships, in daily life and through generations, tend to produce situations of additive filiations on the paternal side of the children's kinship.