Critical Relational Displays

Abstract

In her original article on the topic Janet Finch (2007) proposes that ‘display’ can extend our understandings of contemporary family practices. Display, she argues, is a characteristic activity of contemporary families, and it is an idea that can usefully be added to the conceptual toolbox for analysing these. Finch invites researchers to debate and refine the concept of family display, and I take up this invitation to evaluate its potential contribution to a critical and reflexive sociology of contemporary relational life. In doing so, I concentrate on the ways in which the concept could be refined to address the situated significance of display as an activity for different kinds of families and relationships; the links between display and the power and politics of contemporary relational life; and how display is bound up with the performativity and scripting of family and ‘other’ relationships.