Living Resemblances Project
Who are you like? exhibition
One of the ways we disseminated our findings from this project was in an exhibition in March 2008.
View some of the exhibition materials online (link opens in new window)
1 October 2005 to 30 September 2008
(Part of the Real Life Methods programme of work. )
About the project
Living Resemblances investigated the social significance of family resemblances or likenesses. The project explored how people make sense of, live with and theorise about family resemblances – be they physical, or resemblances in temperament, character, emotion, behaviour, health and so on.
We were interested in the societal fascination with family resemblance, and our research explored how this is played out and what it says about contemporary understandings of kinship, genetic inheritance, and identity. We wanted to find out why ideas and assumptions about resemblances seem to matter so much, and what role they play in family life and outside it.
View project leaflet(Link opens in new window)(
849kb)
Research Methods
We took an interdisciplinary approach to the research. Our methods included:
- A ‘creative interview’ study of resemblances in everyday family life, using ethnographic interviewing, biographical narratives, and visual methods including photo elicitation, video and photography
- Website analysis of resemblances on the internet
- Metaphor-led discourse analysis of resemblance metaphors in talk
- A psychoanalytically informed interview study
- A ‘Qualitative Experiment’, using standardised visual, audio and textual stimuli to explore how resemblances are perceived and reacted to
- An ‘Expert Study’ to explore resemblance discourses
Finding and highlights
- Resemblances matter quite profoundly in personal life, but in different ways. For example they can help people feel as though they are ‘kindred spirits’ or that they have an ongoing connection with someone who has died. A lack of resemblance can make people feel excluded.
- People have different levels of ‘investment’ in spotting resemblances, especially at different stages of life but also as a result of their personal history and experience of family and kin relationships.
- Family politics and disagreements are often connected with whether and how someone resembles or ‘takes after’ someone else. Resemblances are not just ‘given’ facts. They are often contested and sometimes cultivated or coveted. There is a politics of who is ‘good at’ seeing resemblances and who isn’t, as well as a cultural assumption that women are the best resemblance spotters.
- There is a high level of consensus that family resemblances cannot simply be explained by genetics, nor by the nature/nurture distinction.
- To explain how family resemblances ‘work’ we need to understand that they transcend the social, biological, sensory and spiritual or magical domains. This provides a significant challenge to conventional social science wisdom
Research Team
Professor Jennifer Mason (Project leader)
Katherine Davies (Researcher)
Professor Carol Smart, Professor Lynne Cameron, Dr Brendan Gough, Professor Josephine Green, Dr Jon Prosser
Enquiries
For further information about this project please contact Katherine Davies (katherine.davies@manchester.ac.uk)