Queer kinship: South African perspectives on the sexual politics of family-making and belonging

Abstract

The authors set out to produce a text that contributes to the under-researched topics of sexualities, families, and reproduction in South Africa. Their aims were to expand upon the nascent scholarship on queer/LGBTI families (notably the germinal volume Home Affairs by Lubbe-De Beer & Marnell 2013), especially by addressing particular gaps in the scholarship, viz. work that includes gay men, consideration of 'non-heterosexual' reproductive decision-making, and the inclusion of race, class, and rurality into analyses. They believe that this book fulfils these intentions, but also provokes thinking about intimate relationships and belonging more broadly. If, as Butler has asserted, kinship is always already heterosexual, then can the Queer, the 'Others', ever comfortably seek belonging within the bounds of existing kinship and family structures? This text offers some thought-provoking insights into this issue. It not only responds to the paucity of empirical research on the topic (of what we have conceptualised as 'queer kinship', which many of the authors point to, but also contributes to 'systematic thinking about familial relations, reproduction and citizenship' (Turner 2008:45), located in the South African context.