Johnathan Norris

Boston College, Department of Anthropology

2025 Winner

Sons, Families, Secrets: Queering Normative Kinship in Jordan

“Sons, Families, Secrets” offers rich ethnographic research on how some “heteronormative” Arab families become queered. Challenging assumptions in queer studies that heterosexual forms of kinship inevitably produce compulsory heterosexuality and categorically preclude queerness, it demonstrates how Jordanian sexually non-conforming kin remain affectively and materially connected with their natal families while they date, have sex, and participate in Amman’s queer communities. Theorizing “agonistic kin-work” as an affective mode of kin relationality, the author argues how agonism is employed to maintain one’s status with/in the family despite refusing the demands of filial obedience. The paper’s major contribution lies in revealing how kinship structures demonstrate flexibility and adaptability when material and emotional bonds are strong enough to motivate accommodation and renegotiation. “Sons, Families, Secrets” diversifies queer experience by questioning the notion of coming out as freeing one’s “true self,” looking instead at the complex ways that identity is lived and performed in Jordan.

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