Sibling Relationships: Being Connected and Related

2021

This chapter is about siblingship and the necessary analytical considerations when studying this phenomenon. Inspired by family and childhood research, and drawing on an empirical qualitative study in Denmark exploring children’s ways of understanding and practising siblingship, we argue for an approach that carefully examines the form of family and the everyday practices and emotional dynamics constituting contemporary sibling relationships. Ordinary undertakings, such as sharing objects, commuting between households, doing chores and spending spare time together, evoke composite feelings of togetherness and obligation, relatedness and doubt, frustration and longing which reflect tensions …