Affinities, seeing and feeling like family: Exploring why children value face-to-face contact

Abstract

This article examines face-to-face contact as a way in which children practise, imagine and constitute their closest relationships. Based on the findings of a qualitative school-based study, the article shows that children regard ‘seeing’ as a family and relational practice that enables them to feel connected to and develop affinities with others. The article traces the interplay of given, negotiated and created, and sensory affinities in children’s family and kin relationships. Face-to-face contact is explored as a context in which children gain knowledge of others and develop intimate, ‘family-like’ relationships.