What is a Family?

About the lecture

In this lecture, we think about what a family is, focusing in particular on: (i) recognising the typical European and North American view of a family being a monogamously married man and woman with children; (ii) examples of family types which are not represented by the traditional view of a family; (iii) Chambers and Gracia’s 2021 definition of a family as being flexible away from the traditional view; (iv) examples of alternative family types which would be accepted as being a family, under this more flexible understanding of the term; (v) recognising the concept of family as no longer being fixed.

About the lecturer

Dr Rosie Nelson is a lecturer in gender in the School of Sociology, Politics and International Studies at the University of Bristol. Dr Nelson’s research interests are in LGBTQ+ sexualities, trans and non-binary identities. Some of Dr Nelson’s recent publications include ‘What do bisexuals look like? I don’t know!’ (2020) and ‘Questioning identities/shifting identities’ (2020).