Family Matters: Queering the Dominant Discourse of Family

Abstract

The present ethnographic research project examines the ways queer families negotiate the dominant discourse of family when making decisions to raise children together. The language of family is gendered and reflects particular heterosexual, social relations. This paper explores the way a queer family navigates their understandings of family as it collides with and/or reflects the dominant discourse of family. As a background to this exploration, the intersections between four key major theoretical themes are highlighted: language, dominant discourse, queer theory, and family. These themes are applied to queer family experience of language and communication in order to explore the possible ways theory mirrors or collides with lived experience. A particular family unit was interviewed in this research project: two lesbian identified women in a long term relationship and two gay identified men in a long term relationship who chose each other to raise a child together.