Making the family. Actors, networks and the state

Abstract

This article tries to identify the connection between the family and the state. It does so by engaging with Foucault’s notion of governmentality thus pointing out the practice-oriented constituency of state power. The family is approached from an actor-network-theory epistemology and methodology. The epistemological principle presupposes that power of action is symmetrically distributed among actors, both human and non-human. Methodologically, it suggests that one should follow the actors in action. Hence, the article is based on fieldwork that consisted in the tracking of the marriage certificate, identified as the epistemic object that unfolds the associations created in the mechanism of power related to the family.

Keywords

• Object agency
• family
• state
• governmentality