Introduction: Transformative Kinships

Kinship studies originated as a field within the context of Anthropology to designate the product of reproductive succession and social organization.The notion of kinship has been refigured in recent years as a conceptual analytic to describe diverse forms and practices of relating, relationality and relatedness.Kinship modalities are informed by processes of naturalization and incorporation that shape 'what counts as kinship, and how we experience our lives as kin', meaning that social norms often dictate what counts as 'kinship "proper"' (Riggs & Peel 2016, 8).For this issue, we have broadly interpreted the term alongside critical kinship studies which negates the assumption that kinship must be a product of 'nature', and in doing so opens up our understanding to encompass a wider constellation of kin (5).In this reading, relations of kin connote the bonds that undergird life-affirming structures of our world and can extend beyond anthropocentric accounts of relationality, spanning across the confines of societies, cultures, ecologies, time, and space.Haraway describes kinship as a kind of relation that goes beyond genealogical bonds and instead is predicated on a politics of responsible engagement with the world through emphasizing the interdependence of all lifeforms.This conceptualization of kinship is indebted to queer, feminist, and indigenous knowledge traditions that decenter epistemologies which tend to naturalize reductive notions of kin constructed around procreation.Kinmaking is 'an orthopedic practice' insofar that these bonds are continually being remolded and remade over time (Haraway 2004, 2).Our very existence emerges through and is co-constituted by a vast dynamic web of connections and therefore must be attended to with great care to generate 'a kinder and unfamiliar world' (Ibid).Kinship relations imbue life with meaning and quite literally make survival possible, yet not all kinships are strategic or even intentional encounters.In their monograph on critical kinship studies, Riggs and Peel acknowledge that many forms of kinship can affirm but also dangerously stifle life (2016).Although critique is of course essential, this special issue aims to emphasize the transformative potential of kinship relations, how they may be enacted, resisted, dismantled or imagined otherwise.Transformation is vital here considering that kinmaking is a contingent, interventional practice with the potential to radically alter socio-historical processes (See