The day when my mother became my mother. Children of lesbian-parented families experiencing rituals of legal kinning.

This poster focuses on the rituals connected on the legal kinning, namely the creating a filiation status between children of lesbian-parented families and their intended mothers. This article draws on data collected within the research project “Lesbian Moms and Their Kids at Court - LeMoKiaC” carried out by one of the autor. LeMoKiaC explored the extent to which children's voices are considered by mothers as well as by professionals during legal recognition proceedings. The data was analysed additionally through the use of visual methods with the second author, anthropologist and illustrator. This performative text, consisting of writing and visualizations, explores the rites occurring within court proceedings connected to the legal recognition of Intentional Kinship within French and Italian lesbian-parented families. The anthropological analysis is based on long-term child-centered ethnographic observations and interviews with children and young adults whose parents devoted their efforts to obtaining reproductive and family rights. The article provides a critical account of children's participation to this ritual. Our main argument is that, in contrast with article 12.2 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) - that is the right to be listened to in judicial and administrative proceedings - children are given a more symbolic than substantial voice in court proceedings and administrative procedures. The text situates children's participation and voice both in the larger context and in smaller rituals occurring in their everyday life participating in the recognition of their filiation ties. Bibliography: Ammaturo, Francesca R. “Raising queer children and children of queer parents: Children's political agency, human rights and Hannah Arendt's concept of ‘parental responsibility.'” Sexualities 22, 7-8 (2019): 1149-1163. Fine, Agnès & Ouellette, Françoise R. Le Nom dans les sociétés occidentales contemporaines [The name in contemporary Occidental families]. Toulouse: Presses Univ. du Mirail, 2005. Guerzoni, C. S., & Sarcinelli, A. (2019). Kinning and de-kinning: rethinking kinship relatedness from its edges. Antropologia, 6(2). Hiffler-Wittkowsky, Kolia “Les familles queer contre la domination adulte ?” [Queer families against adult domination?], Mouvements, 115, 3 (2023), 90-98. Howell, Signe. The kinning of foreigners: Transnational adoption in a global perspective. Oxord, New York : Berghahn Books, 2022. Kallio, Kirsi P. & Ors. “Tracing children's politics.” Political geography 30.2 (2011): 99-109. McCloskey, M. (1998) Visualizing the Law: Methods for Mapping the Legal Landscape and Drawing Analogies. In Washington Law Review, 73 (1), 163-191. McLachlan S. and Webley C. L. (2021). Visualisation of law and legal process: An opportunity missed. In Information Visualization, 20 (2-3), 192-204. Sarcinelli, Alice Sophie, “Le(s) répertoire(s) de la parenté des enfants des couples de même sexe en Italie”, AnthropoChildren, 9 (2019-2020). URL: https://popups.uliege.be :443/2034- 8517/index.php ?id=3427. Sarcinelli, Alice Sophie, Weissensteiner, Monika & Ors. “Ariadne's Thread. Interweaving Creative Expressions in Ethnographers' Practices.” Revue des sciences sociales 68 (2022): 142-156. Sarcinelli, A. S., & Weissensteiner, M. (2024). What's in a Name? Children's Rights and Legal Voice within Administrative and Juridical Procedures of Recognition of Same-Sex Filiation. Amicus Curiae, 6, 203-223. Strathern, Marilyn. Kinship, law and the unexpected: relatives are always a surprise. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005.