Whither Fictive Kin? Or, What’s in a Name?

Abstract

Drawing on a survey of more than 600 articles that use the term fictive kin, I demonstrate that this term is used predominantly in reference to African Americans and a variety of marginal people and only rarely is used in conjunction with a mainstream White population. After presenting data on the use of the term, I discuss the implications of these findings. I explore as well two rhetorical shifts in language—the introduction of the notion of families of choice and the recent introduction of the concept of voluntary kin.