Displaying Difference, Displaying Sameness: Mixed Couples’ Reflexivity and the Narrative-Making of the Family

Abstract

Drawing on qualitative research involving Christian-Muslim couples in Italy, France and Belgium, the article explores the concept of mixedness by employing Finch’s concept of ‘displaying family’ to reach two goals: how the concept of mixedness bears multiple meanings and how the narrative tool of display works in the life story approach. The analysis distinguishes three main dimensions partners deploy to articulate the concept of mixedness. These are: (1) mixedness as a stigma to reject; (2) mixedness as difference that emerges in a couple’s daily life; and (3) mixedness as a resource to be valued by society. The analysis reveals how partners contest and redefine the concept of mixedness and how narratives work as a tool of family display through which partners: deny a socially ascribed negative definition of their family, narratively articulate the activity of ‘doing family’ on a daily basis and (re)signify a contested definition of family.