On the social life of affect: A narrative-based ethnography of relatedness and coming out in the United States

Katja Pettinen, Purdue University

Abstract

My dissertation project, titled "On the Social Life of Affect: A Narrative-Based Ethnography of Relatedness and Coming Out in the United States," examines the circulation of lesbian and gay identities through the lens of queer theory, interpretive anthropology, and feminist approaches to kinship and relatedness. I utilize an ethnographic approach, foregrounding narratives of heterosexual, white, middle class parents whose adult children identify as lesbian or gay. Through participant-observation in a support and advocacy group for parents, I consider the nature and challenges of social change in relation to sexuality—these parents are both committed to supporting their children yet struggle with what for them is a new social world to inhabit. Many parents express sadness and tears in relation to their child's non-normative identities. My dissertation analyzes this embodied affect; I suggest that these tears speak to the kind of privilege that unmarked family practices provide, a privilege of social belonging that is ruptured by the presence of lesbian and gay identities. By positioning these narratives with feminist approaches to kinship, as well as Michel Foucault's work on technologies of the self, I argue that notions of selfhood in the U.S. are limited by an ideology of a heteronormative nuclear family.

Degree

Ph.D.

Advisors

Blackwood, Purdue University.

Subject Area

Cultural anthropology|GLBT Studies

COinS