Paper short abstract:

How do things, dispositions or phenomena run in the family? Building on longitudinal fieldwork among Danish families with lifelong and inter-generational experiences with obesity and on Bernhard Waldenfels’ Phenomenology of the Alien I explore kinship and relatedness as contagious connections.

Paper long abstract:

In a recent book Sahlins defines kinship as "mutuality of being" and describes kin as people who "live each others lives and die each other's deaths" (Sahlins 2013). Also in the new kinship studies kinship has been defined as a "relatedness" that emerges through shared belongings, homes, places, memories, substances, and bodies (Carsten 2004). In this paper I wish to draw on these insights and notions, and open up phenomenological and 'experience-near' explorations of how things, dispositions or phenomena tend to run in the family. Building on fieldwork among Danish families with lifelong and inter-generational experiences with obesity (carried out from 2001-2003 and again in 2014) and on the German philosopher Bernhard Waldenfels' Phenomenology of the Alien I offer a phenomenological reading of kinship, relatedness and mutuality of being as contagious connections.