La pluralidad familiar, a la luz de la sociología relacional

Abstract

Objectives: to understand family plurality in the light of relational theory, to demonstrate a perspective of family based on its constituent elements, and to establish the benefits or difficulties in recognizing the different family configurations and their possible contribution to the generation of development for society.

Methodology: this qualitative research involved carrying out a documentary analysis of bibliographic and hemerographic archives, plus electronic information cards, about Pierpaolo Donati and his assumptions about family as relational sociology. The aforementioned theoretical postulates are analyzed and a reflection from the relational perspective on family arises; it aims to inform and describe the key elements of this relationship, which are: familiar genome, the social value of family. The analysis is done according to the relational sociology of family diversity.

Results: speaking of family refers to parentage, to kinship, and to alliances underlying this relationship, which generate emotions and obligations that have their own different shade compared to that found in other groups that may be considered to be stemming from the mere ‘feeling’ of being a family. In addition, family is not an exclusively private enclosed core that isolates individuals; it is a relationship that corresponds to social nature of human beings to allow the exchange of feelings, thoughts, care, etc., amongst its members.

Conclusions: we should make a distinction in the uses of the word family because its misuse leads to the confusion of its full meaning and thus to reinforce the idea of a plurality family, defined as the presence of many ways of being family that do not involve constitutive relatedness typical of what can truly be called familiar. Furthermore, understanding family plurality in its constitutive basis should be founded on a reciprocal relationship between genders and generations, and not from individual perceptions and desires. Thus, the criteria used to recognize family character are established to the extent that these forms of coexistence demonstrate their ability to regenerate as terms of trade and binding through donation and love, and as a link between established genders and generations.