Already allowed in several Western countries and at the planning stage in France since the change of government in May 2012, access to adoption for homosexual couples raises the question of same-sex parenting in broader terms. Inconceivable in the 1950s or 60s, it has now become a reality which poses a challenge to family law, where situations involving a legal vacuum and the demands for equality between homosexual couples and heterosexual couples are creating pressure for the bond of filiation to be redefined.

After reviewing the context of the emergence of same-sex parenting in contemporary Western societies Agnès Fine analyses its different forms as well as the demands that flow from it.

Agnès Fine, Professor (Directrice d’études) at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, is an historian and anthropologist, specialising in the area of kinship and gender in European societies. Her research has led her to focus on the historical anthropology of kinship in a rural society and then on elective filiations, past and present. Her main works are concerned with god-parenting, adoption, choice of names and civic status of persons.The second major topic of her research concerns women and gender, and the processes of production of male and female in European societies.

More recently Agnès Fine has headed a French research team operating under a CAPESCOFECUB exchange agreement on “Gender, Kinship, Sexuality” in conjunction with a Brazilian research team headed by Miriam Pillar Grossi of the University of Santa Catarina at Florianopolis. She is co-editor of the collection “Le temps du genre” [The time of gender] of the Presses Universitaires du Mirail (with Michelle Zancarini-Fournel).

Presented by: ANU Gender Institute and ARC Laureate Project Engendering Persons, Transforming Things held by Professor Margaret Jolly

Light refreshments will be served outside the lecture theatre from 5.30pm and the lecture will start from 6pm.

Please RSVP to Nicholas Mortimer by Friday, September 13 for catering purposes.