Introduction au colloque "Espaces pluriels de la parenté : Approches ethnographiques des (re)configurations publiques et intimes dans le monde contemporain"

The multiplicity of systems, forms, categories, and practices of kinship has drawn the attention of anthropologists as central for the ways individuals and human groups think and experience their relationships with themselves, others, their society and the world they live in. Transformations – demographic, political, socio-cultural, economic, juridical, scientific, medical, or those related to age or gender – have contributed to constantly (re)define kinship. In particular, recent innovations regarding, among others, Assisted Reproductive Technologies (ARTs) and surrogacy, and the debates around same-sex couple marriage and adoption, have been understood as deep breaking points in relation to more "traditional" conceptions of kinship, appearing as yet unprecedented and controversial. From an anthropological point of view, such (re)configurations of kinship testify to a variety of articulation between the social, the cultural and the biological, society and nature, the constructed and the innate – categories central for definitions of kinship. This suggests a need to rethink kinship in all its dimensions, from public to intimate ones. Drawing from anthropology and intending to widen the field of empirical, theoretical and epistemological reflections, this conference invites a crossing of perspectives on contemporary (re)configurations of kinship within the human and social sciences with a focus on ethnographic approaches. It is organized around two main, yet non-exclusive lines of research. The first one wishes to interrogate the ways contemporary (re)configurations of kinship take place in different public and intimate entangled spaces. The second one opens up a debate on epistemology when it comes to crossed and comparative perspectives between contexts, themes or disciplines in order to analyse issues, contributions and limits of such field of research