To share and “be shared”…

Abstract

Many children either commute in and out of multiple households or have siblings who do so. They switch between home settings; some of them have to pack themselves and their history/ies into their luggage and move them across the country. They move between multiple households; from one set of home logics to another. They are parts of multi-local extended families and as participants in such multiple families and households share in the conditions of having to share. To a certain degree, they share their everyday lives, things, memories, places, and past and future experiences, but as the ones who move back and forth, they belong a little less to each place. They are “demanded” and “shared”. This paper focuses on children who share family and siblingship – limited to neither a single place nor family unit. Based on a phenomenological understanding, our research sheds light on how the children’s participation in different households places them in different “we-communities”, where sharing must be handled and practiced in an everyday manner. We also shed light on how “shared children” expose different patterns of commonality and divisional practices.

Keywords

• siblingship
• shared and divorced children
• extended families
• we-ness
• throwntogetherness