Real Life Methods ran from October 2005 to January 2009. This website is archived and no longer maintained. For up to date information, please see www.manchester.ac.uk/realities

Living Resemblances

Project Summary

In this project we are investigating the social significance of family resemblances or likenesses. We are exploring how people make sense of, live with and theorise about family resemblances – be they physical, or resemblances in temperament, character, emotion, behaviour, health and so on. We are interested in the societal fascination with family resemblance, and our research is exploring how this is played out and what it says about contemporary understandings of kinship, genetic inheritance, and identity. We want to find out why ideas and assumptions about resemblances seem to matter so much, and what role they play in family life and outside it.

View project leaflet, 849 kb [opens in new window]

Research Methods

Our methods are interdisciplinary, and we are approaching the issue of family resemblances in a number of ways. Our methods include:

A ‘creative interview’ study of resemblances in everyday family life, using ethnographic interviewing, biographical narratives, and visual methods including photo elicitation, video and photography
Website analysis of resemblances on the internet
Metaphor-led discourse analysis of resemblance metaphors in talk
A psychoanalytically informed interview study
A ‘Qualitative Experiment’, using standardised visual, audio and textual stimuli to explore how resemblances are perceived and reacted to
An ‘Expert Study’ to explore resemblance discourses

Who are you like? exhibition

Photo of grandmother and granddaughter We held an exhibition on the theme of family resemblances as part of the 2008 Festival of Social Science. The exhibition contained information about the project, how the research was carried out and some early findings, together with commissioned artwork and the winning entries from a photo competition. Parts of the exhibition are available online.