‘Beings in their own right’? Exploring children and young people's sibling and twin relationships in the Minority World

Abstract

This paper examines the contributions that the sociological study of sibship and twinship in the Minority World can make to childhood studies. It argues that, in providing one forum within which to explore children and young people's social relationships, we can add to our understanding of children and young people's interdependence and develop a more nuanced understanding of agency. As emergent subjects, children, young people and adults are in a process of ‘becoming’. However, this does not mean that they can ‘become’ anything they choose to. The notion of negotiated interdependence (Punch 2002) is useful in helping us to grasp the contingent nature of children and young people's agency.

Keywords:

• being
• agency
• becoming
• interdependence
• twinship
• sibship

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank the participants of this study for devoting their time and sharing their stories. I am also grateful to TAMBA for helping me to access some of these twins. This work was supported by the Economic and Social Research Council [grant number R4 22 000 34 034].

Notes

I use the term ‘identical-looking’ to confer the fact that these twins looked very alike whilst also indicating that they were also unsure about their zygosity.

Emma and Ruth's school divided pupils (who were in the same school year) into different groups. For instance, group X and group Y. Pupils in group X were unlikely to be in same classes as those in group Y.