Troubling 'families'? Global Futures for Family Discourses and Practices. Vienna, Austria, 2016 - CALL FOR PAPERS

The difficulties of defining and analysing 'family' are well-rehearsed but the term persists in powerful and pervasive ways, including through international law, social policies, professional practices and everyday lives.

As well as a key concept for sociological analysis, it attracts strong moral and evaluative overtones, e.g. as 'functional' or 'dysfunctional', 'normative' or 'trouble'. Such terms obscure their underpinnings in culturally shaped value judgements, varying in systematic ways between and within national and local cultures.

This session will interrogate two related themes, considering their potential for sociological contributions to global futures: troubling the concept and discourses of 'family' on the one hand, and on the other, interrogating how some families may be seen to be 'troubling'.

More information: https://isaconf.confex.com/isaconf/forum2016/webprogrampreliminary/Session6431.html