Víctor Rodríguez Cáceres
Natalia Corayl Villalobos

Universidad Arturo Prat, Chile 

Abstract:

Non-human animals have historically been excluded and marginalized from sociological concepts of capital importance, such as “society”, “community”, and “family”. This article seeks to call into question and challenge the latter concept, starting with understanding that the increasing interest in what has lately been called the “animal turn” leads those of us interested in sociological action and reflection to ask ourselves about the anthropocentric charge contained in this and other related concepts. Thus, we will revisit the notion of “family” and will go over its traditional and contemporary formulations, under the lens of the sociology of family. Finally, considering the idea of “multispecies family”, we will outline a set of proposals to help update the theoretical corpus of sociology of family, on the basis that “the multispecies family sociology” can become a subfield of interest.

Keywords: sociology of family, multispecies family, anthropocentrism, human-animal relationship.