Creative Families

This edited collection brings together two strands of current discussions in gender research through the concept of creativity. First, it addresses creativity in the context of the family, by exploring changing and newly emergent family forms and ways of creating and maintaining intimate relationships. Creativity here is understood not as just newness or originality, but as that which, in the words of Eisler and Montouri (2007), supports, nurtures, and actualizes life by increasing the number of choices open to individuals and communities. One aim of this book, therefore, is to investigate the social, collaborative, and creative interactions in contemporary family and kin formations in Europe. Second, the volume examines how new media and technologies are entering and shaping everyday family lives. Technological transformations and adaptions have not only enabled the creation of new forms of families and ways of family living, but also challenged the established constellations of gender and family arrangements. The present volume addresses these issues from multiple perspectives and in different contexts, and explores the involvement of different actors. By problematizing the creativity of becoming and doing family and kinship, the authors acknowledge the increasing fluidity of gender identities, the evolving diversity of relationships, and the permeation of technology into daily life. Jana Mikats is Lecturer in the Department of Sociology at the University of Graz, Austria. She specializes in family sociology, gender studies, and qualitative research methods.  Susanne Kink-Hampersberger is Lecturer in the Department of Education Research and Teacher Education at the University of Graz, Austria. Her research interests include sociology of gender, education and technology, and feminist and queer science and technology studies. Libora Oates-Indruchová is Professor of the Sociology of Gender at the University of Graz, Austria. She is the author of Censorship in Czech and Hungarian Academic Publishing, 1969-89: Snakes and Ladders (2020) and co-editor of The Politics of Gender Culture under State Socialism: An expropriated voice (2014).