Polyamory, Kinship, and Belonging: An Exploration of the Affective Dimensions of Polyam Orientations

In this talk, I will take the audience on an exploratory journey through what I see as the affective dimensions of heteronormative monogamy on the one hand and polyqueer kinship on the other.

I explore how we might view some of the experiences of polyamory as affect–a largely unconscious, embodied orientation toward objects in the world including other people and experiences.

I will discuss how metamour relationships, cultivating compersion, and a rhizomorphic orientation toward kinship are not just social, interpersonal, and psychological experiences; they are also affective phenomena.

In this exploration, I address the following questions: What is polyam affect and how is different from mono affect?

What are the socio-political dimensions of relationship orientations and their affects?

That is, how are relationship orientations and their affects implicated in maintaining or potentially challenging racism, heterosexism, nationalism, misogyny, and class inequality?

Finally, how might a polyam relationship orientation and its affects open up possibilities for forming political alliances across difference?