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Blended Families

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Living and Dying in a Virtual World

Part of the book series: Palgrave Macmillan Memory Studies ((PMMS))

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Abstract

In this chapter Gibson and Carden explore the creative and often spontaneous family constructions that can emerge within Second Life. These families can take various forms. They include romantic partnerships, “blended” families consisting of both members who are related outside of Second Life and members who are adopted in-world, and “constructed” families which are entirely formed in Second Life. The core finding of this chapter is that these family configurations are real and significant to their members.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Larissa Hjorth et al., “Digital Kinships: Intergenerational Locative Media in Tokyo, Shanghai and Melbourne,” in The Routledge Handbook of New Media in Asia, ed. Larissa Hjorth and Olivia Khoo (London ; New York: Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group, 2016), 251–61.

  2. 2.

    Hjorth et al.

  3. 3.

    Hjorth et al., 252.

  4. 4.

    Anastasia Slater, “Virtually Yours: Desire and Fulfillment in Virtual Worlds,” The Journal of Popular Culture 44, no. 5 (2011): 1120–37; Ashley John Craft, “Love 2.0: A Quantitative Exploration of Sex and Relationships in the Virtual World Second Life,” Archives of Sexual Behavior 41, no. 4 (August 2012): 939–47, https://doi.org/10.1007/s10508-012-9933-7.

  5. 5.

    As discussed in Margaret Gibson, “Grievable Lives: Avatars, Memorials, and Family ‘Plots’ in Second Life,” Mortality 22 (January 12, 2017): 224–39, https://doi.org/10.1080/13576275.2016.1263941.

  6. 6.

    Families We Choose: Lesbians, Gays, Kinship, Between Men—between Women (New York: Columbia University Press, 1997).

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    Alexis Dewaele et al., “Families of Choice? Exploring the Supportive Networks of Lesbians, Gay Men, and Bisexuals,” Journal of Applied Social Psychology 41, no. 2 (2011): 312–31.

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  9. 9.

    Doka, 39.

  10. 10.

    Bryan McNutt and Oksana Yakushko, “Disenfranchised Grief Among Lesbian and Gay Bereaved Individuals,” Journal of LGBT Issues in Counseling 7, no. 1 (January 2013): 87–116, https://doi.org/10.1080/15538605.2013.758345.

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    Lisa D Hensley, “Bereavement in Online Communities: Sources of and Support for Disenfranchised Grief,” in Dying, Death, and Grief in an Online Universe: For Counselors and Educators, ed. Carla Sofka, Illene Noppe Cupit, and Kathleen R. Gilbert (New York: Springer Pub, 2012), 121.

  12. 12.

    Hensley, 127.

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    “For Whom the Ontology Turns: Theorizing the Digital Real,” Current Anthropology 57, no. 4 (August 2016): 387–407, https://doi.org/10.1086/687362.

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    Janet Carsten, ed., “Introduction – Cultures of Relatedness,” in Cultures of Relatedness: New Approaches to the Study of Kinship (Cambridge [England] New York: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 3.

  15. 15.

    Carsten, 13; Sarah Franklin and Helena Ragone, Reproducing Reproduction: Kinship, Power, and Technological Innovation (University of Pennsylvania Press, 1998); Sarah Franklin and Susan McKinnon, Relative Values: Reconfiguring Kinship Studies (Duke University Press, 2002); Sarah Franklin, “Biologization Revisited: Kinship Theory in the Context of the New Biologies,” in Relative Values, by Janet Carsten and Gillian Feeley-Harnik, ed. Sarah Franklin and Susan McKinnon (Duke University Press, 2002), 302–25, https://doi.org/10.1215/9780822383222-012.

  16. 16.

    Sherry Turkle, “Constructions and Reconstructions of Self in Virtual Reality: Playing in the MUDs,” Mind, Culture, and Activity 1, no. 3 (June 1994): 161–62, https://doi.org/10.1080/10749039409524667.

  17. 17.

    Heads Up Display, an item which attaches to the avatar. These have different functions. In this case, the HUD allows the resident to control the pregnancy and provides them with messages relating to the pregnancy and foetus.

  18. 18.

    Margaret K. Nelson, “Single Mothers ‘Do’ Family,” Journal of Marriage and Family 68, no. 4 (November 2006): 782, https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1741-3737.2006.00292.x.

  19. 19.

    Suzanne Bianchi, “Mothers and Daughters ‘Do,’ Fathers ‘Don’t Do’ Family: Gender and Generational Bonds,” Journal of Marriage and Family 68, no. 4 (2006): 812.

  20. 20.

    Nelson, “Single Mothers ‘Do’ Family,” 793.

  21. 21.

    Nelson, 794.

  22. 22.

    “Displaying Families,” Sociology 41, no. 1 (February 2007): 66, https://doi.org/10.1177/0038038507072284.

  23. 23.

    Finch, 68.

  24. 24.

    Finch, 79.

  25. 25.

    E.g. “Sitting Shiva,” shiva.com, n.d., http://www.shiva.com/learning-center/sitting-shiva/.

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Gibson, M., Carden, C. (2018). Blended Families. In: Living and Dying in a Virtual World. Palgrave Macmillan Memory Studies. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-76099-5_2

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