Dr Kulpa talks about friendship, social policy, and social resilience at the Centre for Child & Family Law & Policy

Start date and time

Wednesday 7 December 2022

Location

Dr Roberto Kulpa speaks about: 鈥楾hinking with and about friendship to inform better social policies and social resilience' at the Child and Family Law Research Network Workshop on Contemporary Families.

My argument is that we (societies, policymakers, parliamentarians, civil society) need to focus more systematically on friendship for it has strong potential to push policy-making boundaries with attention given to overlooked social bonds and how they strengthen social resilience across European societies.

Contemporary focus on 鈥榝amily' only is reactive, and that bold reconfigurations are needed. Our ongoing and future post-pandemic work on strengthening societal resilience will not be effective or pro-active enough without recognition of social relations beyond (heteronormatively understood) family and kinship.

To recognise friendship as a fundamental social relation equal with (and not overshadowed by) the family is a much-needed step towards more nuanced understandings of resilience and, consequently, more effective strategies for building socially resilient communities.

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