Kinship on the move: eviction and new socialities emerging among transgender people in Kerala

Abstract

Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork among transgender people in Kerala, I unravel the processual understanding of kinship enabled through queer mobility and kin‐making practices. With a focus on intra‐regional movements of transgender people in a Parivar, a kinship unit headed by a trans woman, I argue that queer mobility and kin‐making constitute each other to an understanding of ‘kinship on the move’ in opposition to the perception of kinship as static and fixed. The literal and figurative movements of transgender people to various kin positions and various households render an understanding of kinship as an ongoing process that includes connections, disconnections and a conglomeration of natal kin, Parivar kin and kin that matter. The study blurs the boundary between kinship and kin‐making and points to the need to ­consider these aspects together.