Sarah Murru

Le présent rapport présente de manière synthétique les principaux résultats transversaux du projet ERC Starting Grant « MobileKids : Children in multi-local, post-separation families », financé par le Conseil européen de la Recherche, et dirigé par la prof. Laura Merla. Cette recherche en sociologie vise à comprendre la manière dont l’hébergement égalitaire, et la mobilité et la multilocalité qui découlent de ce type de réorganisation familiale post-divorce, affectent les enfants âgés de 10 à 16 ans. Il comprend un premier volet consacré à l'étude de l'hébergement égalitaire en Belgique, qui aborde le cadre législatif, le regard que les jeunes portent sur leur configuration familiale, la manière dont les politiques familiales reconnaissent (ou pas) ce mode d'hébergement, et propose une étude approfondie du sens du 'chez-soi' des enfants qui vivent dans ce type de configuration familiale. Le second volet s'intéresse à la garde alternée en Italie, en revenant sur le cadre législatif italien et en analysant la manière concrète dont ce mode d'hébergement est mis en place.

Le présent rapport présente de manière synthétique les principaux résultats du volet belge du projet ERC Starting Grant « MobileKids : Children in multi-local, post-separation families », financé par le Conseil européen de la Recherche, et dirigé par la prof. Laura Merla.
Il comprend deux parties:
La première, intitulée « l’hébergement égalitaire en contexte », brosse un portrait rapide du contexte législatif belge et de la part d’hébergement égalitaire  (HE) au sein de la population des familles divorcées ou séparées. Elle présente ensuite les principaux résultats de trois enquêtes. La première a été menée auprès de juges et avocats familialistes et permet de dégager les principaux critères mobilisés pour évaluer les demandes d’hébergement égalitaire, ainsi que les représentations normatives de la famille qui informent l’évaluation des demandes et la motivation des refus d’un hébergement égalitaire. Laseconde analyse la manière dont les politiques familiales belges intègrent les situations d'hébergement égalitaire. La troisième enquête a été administrée en 2018 auprès de 1500 adolescents scolarisés dans l’enseignement secondaire en Fédération Wallonie-Bruxelles – parmi lesquels 158 vivent en HE.
La seconde partie constitue le coeur de ce rapport, à savoir, l’expérience vécue de l’HE. Elle présente les résultats d’une recherche doctorale approfondie menée par Bérengère Nobels, sous la supervision de Laura Merla, menée sur 5 ans auprès de 21enfants de 10 à 16 ans vivant en HE en FWB. Elle dresse un portrait détaillé des enjeux et questions liées aux niveaux micro et méso du projet MobileKids, à partir d’une étude de la manière dont les jeunes se construisent un sens du chez-soi et négocient leur place dans la famille. Les résultats de cette étude ont été mis en discussion lors de focus groups avec des acteurs institutionnels et de terrain. Le fruit de ces échanges et les recommandations qui en découlent sont présentés à la fin de cette section.

Le présent rapport présente de manière synthétique les principaux résultats du volet italien du projet ERC Starting Grant « MobileKids : Children in multi-local, post-separation families », financé par le Conseil européen de la Recherche, et dirigé par la prof. Laura Merla. Cette recherche en sociologie vise à comprendre la manière dont la garde alternée égalitaire, et la mobilité et la multilocalité qui découlent de ce type de réorganisation familiale post-divorce, affectent les enfants âgés de 10 à 16 ans. Ce rapport montre, d’une part comment un cadre législatif qui encourage peu une répartition équitable des nuitées chez chaque parent, influe sur les pratiques des enfants ; et d’autre part, comment d’autres facteurs structurels, tels que l’organisation urbaine, le système scolaire, ou les normes de genre, ont tout autant de poids sur la manière dont enfant et parents font sens de leurs quotidiens.

Our world today is experimenting a time of great power but also of tremendous resistances.
Everywhere, people are brought together by similar burdens and frustration and creatively think about how to counter the forms of domination they are ascribed to. In academia as well there is an awakening among scholars to further investigate these multiple forms of resistance and equip the field with useful and empowering knowledge.
This book aims at presenting some of these findings and reflecting upon the implications, social relevance, and ethical challenges of the growing field of Resistance Studies.

"From France’s gilets jaunes to the native pipeline blockades in North Dakota - numerous societies confronted with the impact and the decline of a certain political and economic order, see forms of protest and resistance that cannot be embedded in nor really connected to ‘classical’ political actors and civil society. This is why a comparative work on resistances like this one is timely."
— Bruno De Cordier, Associate Professor, Conflict Research Group, Ghent University, Belgium


"This work is an excellent contribution to our understanding of the complex issue of resistance in its different forms and shapes. It is a brilliant introduction to the new trends in resistances studies based on fruitful empirical research. Each chapter integrates a case study which highlights an ongoing debate commented by scholar-activists engaged in the movements they study."
— Firouzeh Nahavandi, Professor, Free University of Brussels


"Resistances is a rich illustration of the interdisciplinary range, empirical scope and theoretical depths of contemporary resistance studies. It articulates a new wave by scholar-activists combining theoretical analysis with activist concerns. It brings the field forward by critically discussing earlier work and suggesting new approaches. Importantly, it argues for our engagement with the "resistance-violence nexus" and domination within the academia."
— Stellan Vinthagen, Professor of Sociology, University of Massachusetts, Amherst

Objective: This paper investigates the impact of the 2020 Covid-19 related Spring Lockdown in Italy on families practicing shared physical custody (SPC) arrangements for their children.
Background: Those family configurations partly challenge the dominant 'mother as main carer model' that characterizes Italian society. Here, we consider the lockdown as a "challenge-trial" (Martucelli 2015) to analyze the strategies that these families have developed to cope with lockdown, and to reveal the overarching structures that contributed to shape this experience of lockdown.
Method: We draw on semi-structured interviews with 19 parents (9 fathers and 10 mothers), part of 12 families practicing SPC.
Results: We propose a typology of custody reorganizations during lockdown and how this affected the division of parental involvement based on a) change/no change in sleepover calendars in favor of mother/father; and b) similar/different arrangements for siblings-a new practice that emerged and also has implications for the division of childcare between parents. Four types are identified where we emphasize new parenting practices and the role played by material housing configurations, relations and tensions between family members, as well as balancing work, school and childcare.
Conclusion: We highlight the usefulness of applying a "challenge-trial" lens to the study of family life under lockdown, and the need to complexify research on gender equality in shared parenting and on sibling relationships in post-divorce families.

This article introduces the thematic dossier 'Family Transformations and Residential Mobility' by re-interpreting the notion of habitus in the light of socialisation processes and practices specific to 'doing family' in the context of residential mobility, both within and across national borders. It takes as its starting point the notion of transnational habitus as defined in the field of study of transnational families, and pursues the reflection by building conceptual bridges between this work and the study of multilocality - with a particular interest in families who have set up shared physical custody arrangements after divorce or separation. This work is carried out through three themes that cut across the articles that make up the thematic dossier, and allow to deconstruct the classic conceptualisation of the link between family and space. The first concerns the experience of a multiplicity of frames of reference through which 'doing family' is materialised, and which outlines a way of 'being in the world' specifically linked to a family life marked by multi-refentiality and multilocality. The second deals with the multiplicity and complementarity of the forms of co-presence that underpin the sense of belonging. It stresses the importance of considering the sensory and material dimension of "doing family" and the sharing of common knowledge and experiences in the analysis of the processes that participate in the creation, maintenance and upkeep of a sense of family belonging. It also  highlights the skills, dispositions, practices, routines, in short, the ways of being, doing and acting - the habitus - of members of multilocal and transnational families. The third theme deals with the place of power relations in the structuring of both practices and the family's relationship to space. It shows that everyday family practices are constructed through the (re)negotiation of power relations between different individuals, but also involve practices of resistance and new ways of being that question and destabilise the dominant structures organising the 'family' in society. It also addresses the issue of social inequalities and the resources and capitals that, on the one hand, are necessary to 'do family' in the context of residential mobility and, on the other hand, stem from, and are generated by, the socialisation to this way of life. In conclusion, the article proposes to de-compartmentalise work on the family 'on the move' through the notion of 'multilocal habitus', defined as a set of potentially contradictory habits, patterns and dispositions, constructed in a multilocal family context, which allows to navigate between, and to deal with, multiple referential frameworks and to define the contours of the family and the inscription in a family group at a local and global level - 'here', 'there', and 'in between'.

Cet article introduit le dossier thématique « Transformations familiales et mobilité résidentielle » en ré-interrogeant la notion d’habitus à la lumière des processus de socialisation et des pratiques spécifiques au ‘faire famille’ en contexte de mobilité résidentielle, tant à l’intérieur qu’au travers de frontières nationales. Il prend pour point de départ la notion d’habitus transnational tel que définie dans le champ d’étude des familles transnationales, et poursuit la réflexion en jetant des ponts conceptuels entre ces travaux et l’étude de la multilocalité – avec un intérêt particulier pour les familles ayant mis en place un hébergement alterné après divorce ou séparation -. Ce travail est réalisé au travers de trois thèmes transversaux aux articles qui composent le dossier thématique, et qui permettent de déconstruire la conceptualisation classique du lien entre famille et espace. Le premier concerne l’expérience d’une multiplicité de cadres de référence au travers desquels le “faire famille” se matérialise, et qui dessine une manière « d’être au monde » spécifiquement liée à une vie de famille marquée par la multiréfentialité et la multilocalité. Le second traite de la multiplicité et la complémentarité des formes de coprésence qui sous-tendent le sentiment d’appartenance. Il souligne l’importance de considérer la dimension sensorielle et matérielle du “faire famille” et le partage de connaissances et d’expériences communes dans l’analyse des processus qui participent à la création, à l’entretien et au maintien d’un sentiment d’appartenance familiale, et met en exergue les compétences, dispositions, pratiques, routines, bref, les manières d’être, de faire, et d’agir – les habitus – des membres de familles multilocales et transnationales. Le troisième thème aborde la place des relations de pouvoir dans la structuration tant des pratiques que du rapport de la famille à l’espace. Il montre que les pratiques familiales quotidiennes se construisent au prisme de (re)négociations de relations de pouvoir entre les différents individus, mais impliquent également des pratiques de résistance et de nouvelles manières d’être qui questionnent et déstabilisent les structures dominantes organisant le “faire famille” en société. Il permet également d’aborder la question des inégalités sociales et des ressources et capitaux qui, d’une part, sont nécessaires pour “faire famille” en contexte de mobilité résidentielle et, d’autre part, découlent de, et sont générées par la socialisation à ce mode de vie. En conclusion, l’article propose de dé-cloisonner les travaux sur la famille ‘en mouvement’ au travers de la notion d’ “habitus multilocal”, défini comme un ensemble d’habitudes, de schèmes et de dispositions potentiellement contradictoires, construits dans un contexte familial multilocal, qui permet de naviguer entre, et de composer avec, des cadres référentiels multiples et de définir les contours de la famille et l’inscription dans un groupe familial à un niveau local et global – “ici”, “là-bas”, et “entre deux”.

This chapter explores the important question of whether, and under which conditions, children alternating between two distinct family dwellings can develop a sense of home that might nourish a sense of belonging to their sometimes, complex family configurations. We first present a theoretical framework to understand the various dimensions that influence children's sense of home in shared custody arrangements, building on Hashemnezhad et al. (2013)'s work. We then show how this framework can be operationalized in quantitative research. For this purpose, we introduce the Sense of Home Instrument (SOHI), a new instrument for measuring the impact of material and behavioral-relational dimensions on teenagers' sense of home at their mothers' and fathers'. We then illustrate its relevance and value with supporting analyses of data collected through a survey conducted with Belgian adolescents aged between 11 and 18. In doing so, we propose new avenues for research on the consequences of divorce and separations for children's identity construction and belonging, where the spatiality of family life is taken into-account.

While the so-called " end of public space " literature, focusing on encroachment of private interests and state surveillance, has contributed to critical thinking of access (or the lack thereof) to public space, and the loss of publicity of public space, the conceptual tools such literature offers to understand contestations in and over public space have remained underdeveloped or, at best, underexplored. This article builds on the above debates to provides further empirical evidence on the way actors of a country compete over, and negotiate, the use of public space and the way it should be regulated. Empirically, it illustrates competition and negotiation of the use of language in Odessa, the third largest city of Ukraine, where Ukrainian should be the official language but Russian is widely used. Theoretically, starting from the way public and private are negotiated, and the extent to which this happens, we will suggest that resistance to state measures, and policies, that do not suit a considerable portion of a population may happen not only formally but also informally. The practices, tactics, and mechanisms used may, however, remain " invisible " for some time and then surprise everyone by emerging, all of a sudden, one day. A possible way to notice these dynamics is to engage with an " everyday " approach, thus acknowledging that everyday practices are a meaningful, and useful, site for understanding sociopolitical developments in the process of the construction of " the political. "

Based on an ongoing research project entitled MobileKids: Children in Multi-Local, Post-Separation Families (ERC Starting Grant project – supervision: Prof. Laura Merla), this paper critically examines the use of the Socio-Spatial Network Game (SSNG) as an innovative method to observe children in shared physical custody’s experiences of multi-locality. The problematic is to understand how the lives of children are affected by divorce, mobility and multilocality in the context of shared custody arrangements, and how children accommodate to this family situation. The SSNG is a board game where children can concretely construct the experience of their multi-local everyday life (Schier et al 2015). In other words, it is as a space sensitive tool for qualitative egocentric network analysis, that is developed for research with children and allows great creative freedom in an aim to capture information about social relations and their spatial dimensions. This paper will thus start by exposing the method, its pertinence to capture the children’s standpoint, as well as an ethical reflection of its use with minors. As we all mobilize the SSNG during our first encounter with children, we then propose a critical and reflexive analysis on the strengths and weaknesses of using this method in a collective project such as MobileKids – where each researcher focuses on a specific research question. In particular, we present how the method was used to document social networks in two separate sub-cases: one that focuses specifically on children’s social networks, and the other that is framed as an institutional ethnography, documenting everyday practices.

Just what is institutional ethnography? How can young scholars understand its premise, promise, and potential for changing the conditions of our lives? And how can we, as scholars well-acquainted with IE, successfully introduce students to IE? This panel invites participation from IE scholars to debate and consider the foundations of institutional ethnography as a method for inquiry and how to invite students and junior scholars to take up that legacy. The goal of this panel is to bring what happens as murmurs, quiet unshared confusions and shy questions to the limelight to help build up the practice of IE. Understanding IE as a conceptual framework for inquiry can be daunting. This is not least a due to a socialization into sociology as a social science, which emphasizes positivist understandings of the social world, and the presentation of qualitative research as intended to « build theory. Collectively, trans-generationally, trans-continentally and grounded in our own experiences, this panel will address the the following questions: How can young scholars pause the impulse for theory-based thinking? How can we avoid using concepts such as “justice”, “racism” or « resistance » without explaining how they actually work? How can IE contribute to our disciplines and universities without compromising its foundations as a method for inquiry and a sociology in itself?

In this paper, we compare and discuss the level of support that Belgian, French, and Italian family policies offer to multi-local, post-separation families who have put in place shared physical custody arrangements for their children. This innovative policy analysis is based on an expert survey aimed at understanding the scope and implementation of public policies regarding shared physical custody in the three countries. It takes place in the broader context of the ERC Starting Grant project MobileKids: Children in Multi-Local, Post-Separation Families.

This paper explores the methods employed to study the experience of children living in shared physical custody arrangements in Turin, Italy. It is part of the ERC Starting Grant research project, supervised by Prof. Laura Merla, MobileKids: Children in Multi-Local, Post-Separation Families, which seeks to understand the lived experiences of children who grow up in separated or divorced families practicing shared physical custody arrangements in Belgium, France and Italy.
Considering children as active social actors that can, to various extents, exercise agency and influence on their own lives as well as on the lives of the people surrounding them, we ask how children are active in developing family practices inside this mobility and look at the process of moving from one house to the other every week. For this purpose, we will present 3 methods that we mobilize to help the children make sense of their multi-local residency: the Social Spatial Network Game (Schier, 2017), the use of photos, and fictional cases about specific key moments in this context.

MobileKids is a 5-years ERC Starting Grant project that seeks to understand how Belgian, French and Italian children aged between 10 and 16 living in egalitarian shared custody arrangements accommodate to their multi-local lives. The project seeks to understand in particular how they maintain family and social relations, through the appropriation of mobility and virtual connectedness. Based on the preliminary results of the Leuven/Louvain Adolescents Survey (LAdS), - a survey conducted in Belgian secondary schools, and which aims at mapping the diversity of family arrangements and their influence on the beliefs, attitudes and practices of adolescents - , we will focus our presentation on the socio-demographic profiles of children growing up in shared physical custody arrangements, on the characteristics of this family arrangement, and on the level of contact children maintain with relatives across their two households using digital technologies.

Dans ce numéro spécial, nous souhaitons donc explorer les dimensions spatiales du ‘faire famille’, dans un contexte de diversification des formes familiales, et de mobilité des personnes qui en découle. Les familles divorcées, recomposées, transnationales… bousculent en effet l’appréhension classique de l’ancrage spatial du « faire famille» dans et autour d'un lieu de résidence fixe et commun, et amènent à repenser ce qui se joue dans, et au-delà des murs de la « maison ». Nous sommes tout particulièrement intéressées par les pratiques, discours et narrations que développent les individus - adultes et enfants – dans ce contexte, afin de se distancier de, d’affirmer et/ou de (re)négocier dans un même mouvement leurs relations et appartenances familiales et territoriales. Dans ce numéro spécial, il s’agira d’examiner cette articulation dans une perspective sociologique ou anthropologique, à partir de travaux empiriques mobilisant un matériau qualitatif.

In a context of diversification of family forms, we therefore wish to explore in this special issue the spatial dimensions of "doing family" and the resulting mobility of people. Divorced, recomposed, transnational families... challenge the classic apprehension of the spatial anchoring of "doing family" in and around a fixed and common place of residence, and lead to a rethinking of what is at stake in and beyond the walls of the "home". We are particularly interested in the practices, discourses and narratives that individuals - adults and children - develop in this context in order to distance themselves from, affirm and/or (re)negotiate their family and territorial relationships. In this special issue, we will examine this articulation from a sociological or anthropological perspective, based on empirical work using qualitative material.