Introduction

In much of the Euro-American world, the possibility that family life might be reaching a point of collapse has emerged as a regular focus of an increasingly anxious public debate. It is easy to see why. Besides steadily eroding the range and intensity of networks of extra-familial kinship reciprocity so that such relationships are but a shadow of their former selves, the ever-more active pursuit of personal freedom has now begun to have a similar impact on the integrity of the nuclear family itself. The results are plain to see. In the face of the apparently inexorable rise in the frequency of divorce, even the institution of marriage is falling steadily out of favour. But in contrast to the way in which these developments have precipitated urgent public discussions about the prospect of reinforcing shrinking levels of familial solidarity, this chapter explores a set of issues lying right at the other end of the spectrum: those in which a perceived degree of over-commitment to familial solidarity is alleged to be precipitating such serious challenges to human and personal rights that urgent legislative efforts are now required to contain their pathogenic consequences.

Such developments might seem bewildering but for the context within which they have erupted. The underlying contradictions which have driven these arguments forward have little, if anything to do with kinship, per se, or even with human rights, though this provides the legitimising framework within which the debate is set. Instead they are better understood as the outcome of contradictions generated by the rapid growth in the scale of the non-European presence precipitated by processes of mass-migration and globalisation during the course of the past half century.

Why, though, should family and kinship have become such a serious battleground in this context? On the face of it such matters would appear to be peripheral, since public concern in this sphere is primarily directed at the competitive threat which the inflow of immigrants is perceived as offering to the material interests of the indigenous majority. Hence, popular concern was initially articulated in terms of fears about the extent to which newcomers would steal jobs, lower wages, precipitate a shortage of housing and place an unreasonable burden on scarce public services. By contrast, the current debate with respect to non-European settlers’ preferred patterns of kinship solidarity has a different focus.