ABSTRACT
This chapter explores how alternative kinship, non-normative sexualities and gender cut through the inheritance system and focuses on queer and feminist anthropologist literature on institutions, legal categories and relationships. It discusses the vulnerability risks that gender produces in relation to the growing importance of the inheritance institution-the potentially problematic engagements with this institution by those who find themselves in the sexually marginalised groups or on the margins of kinship. The chapter presents original survey and interview research data on queer inheritance arrangements and lawyers' experiments with their queer clients. It analyses how gender distinctions and sexual valorisations get mobilised in and through the inheritance system. The chapter also presents the case study of Finland because its inheritance legislation is conceptualised as gender-neutral and, as such, equal and just. A study of a declining Nordic welfare state provides a concrete scene from which to open up wider questions on how gender, queer sexuality and kinship interact with legal institutions.
