Posts by Laura Merla
Around the comic book ‘Deux toits, un chez-moi’
Two dwellings, one home? Immersion in the experiences of children in shared physical custody
https://visite-virtuelle.uclouvain.be/expos/deux_maisons-un_chez_soi MobileKids is a project funded by the European Research Council and carried out by a team of sociologists from the Centre Interdisciplinaire de Recherche sur les Familles et les Sexualités (Cirfase, UCLouvain) under the direction of prof. Laura Merla. The project aims to understand the experiences of children growing up in separated and/or divorced…
Read MoreComic book : Deux toits, un chez-moi ?
https://kenneseditions.com/product/deux-toits-un-chez-moi Laura Merla and Bérengère Nobels teamed up with a comic book writer, Falzar, and an illustrator, Pacotine, to create a comic book, Deux toits, un chez-moi? (Kennes Editions), which addresses the consequences of shared custody (in case of parental separation) on teenagers’ lives. The pitch? Four teenagers, four families marked by parental separation, four…
Read MoreChildren in shared physical custody in Belgium and Italy: MobileKids Final transversal report
This report succinctly presents the main transversal results of the ERC Starting Grant project “MobileKids: Children in multi-local, post-separation families,” funded by the European Research Council and led by Prof. Laura Merla. This sociological research aims to understand how shared physical custody arrangements, and the mobility and multilocality that result from this type of post-divorce…
Read MoreItalian legal frame for separation, divorce, and child custody
This report examines the legal framework with regards to couple separation, divorce and child custody in Italy, and offers a useful guide for international audiences and social sciences researchers interested in those issues. The first section presents, in a chronological perspective, the various legislations that concern family matters and especially the questions regarding couple unions,…
Read More‘Doing’ and ‘Displaying’ Family in Polymediatic Environments: Conceptual Tools for the Analysis of Teenagers’
This chapter identifies interesting tools for the study of children’s creative digital practices in the family sphere, by articulating two aspects of children’s lives where ICTs play an important role: the everyday management of presence and absence in family life, and the practices that support how family continues to be ‘done’ in this context; and…
Read More« Families facing the Italian lockdown: Temporal adjustments and new caring practices in shared physical custody arrangements »
Objective: This paper investigates the impact of the 2020 Covid-19 related Spring Lockdown in Italy on families practicing shared physical custody (SPC) arrangements for their children. Background: Those family configurations partly challenge the dominant ‘mother as main carer model’ that characterizes Italian society. Here, we consider the lockdown as a « challenge-trial » to analyze the strategies that these…
Read MoreMobileKids at the 15th European Sociological Association Conference (ESA)
The MobileKids Team was thrilled to participate in the 15th ESA conference. Originally planned to be held in Barcelona, it was moved to a virtual format due to the sanitary crisis. Our team members presented the following papers: Title : Material practices of Children in shared custody arrangements: dealing with, and making sense of, a world in…
Read MoreThe SOHI: Operationalizing a New Model for Studying Teenagers’ Sense of Home in Post-divorce Families
This chapter explores the important question of whether, and under which condi-tions, children alternating between two distinct family dwellings can develop a sense of home that might nourish a sense of belonging to their sometimes, complex family configurations. We first present a theoretical framework to understand the various dimensions that influence children’s sense of home…
Read MoreComplexité familiale et politiques sociales
En juillet 2021, l’équipe MobileKids a participé à un panel passionnant sur la complexité familiale et les politiques sociales lors de la 5e Conférence internationale sur les Politiques Publiques. Laura Merla et Lorena Izaguirre ont présenté une analyse politique innovante, comparant et discutant le niveau de soutien que les politiques familiales belges, françaises et italiennes…
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