Homosexualparenthood: New Lights on Kinship

Abstract

Inspired in the work of Kath Weston and other anthropologists working principally in the United States and England, in this article I examine different elements of the notion: “Families we choose”. In the first part, the examples are designed to demonstrate how certain lesbian couples, using new legislative and technological possibilities, recreate ideologies of kinship. If, in these first examples, “choice” appears as something positive – a reproductive right to be guaranteed by public authorities –, in the second part of this discussion, in which I consider the example of international adoption, I bring to the fore certain criticisms of “individual choice”. Here, homosexual parenthood, just as other contemporary forms of family, are seen as “co-productions” that involve – aside from cultural values – law, technology, and money.