From Womb to Laboratories: Siblingship in a Complex Family System
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Written by Veronica L. GREGORIO
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ABSTRACT
Families are made up of a variety of relationships—parent-child, grandparent-grandchild, in-law relations, intergenerational, marital, among others. With global economic, social, and cultural changes, these relations continuously evolve. This review essay explored how siblingship is examined in the context of an increasingly complex family system. The first section highlighted earlier works on how family cultures and practices continue or transform sibling relations. Works studying the prevalence of having half siblings, step siblings, adoptive siblings, assisted reproductive technology (ART)-produced siblings, and pets as siblings were also examined. The last section suggested approaches to further conduct the study of siblingship. This paper argued that future siblingships can be better understood by reviewing previous analyses of siblingship and looking at siblingship formations and categorizations.
Veronica L. GREGORIO is a Lecturer (Social Sciences) at the College of Humanities and Sciences, National University of Singapore. Her thematic research interests include gender and sexuality, family sociology, and youth studies, with a regional focus on Southeast Asia. She has conducted fieldwork in the Philippines, Malaysia, and Singapore, utilizing ethnographic, visual, and digital methodologies. Her research has been published in academic journals, including Current Sociology, Review of Women's Studies, Philippine Sociological Review, and Simulacra Jurnal Sosiologi. Her latest work is the co-edited volume, Resilience and Familism: The Dynamic Nature of Families in the Philippines published by Emerald Publishing in 2023.
