ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book focuses on questions of kinship as it might be understood across a number of domains. It examines personal narratives of family and kinship as told by lesbian, gay, bisexual and queer people in their 20s and 30s in two studies, the first undertaken in the mid-1990s and the other undertaken more recently in 2009–2010. The book highlights both the damage caused to young lives and the creativity, refusal and resilience of queer youth as they resist the imposition of power and policing by the carceral state. It looks at the form and content of current sexual education in Sweden, and examines the forms of social control to which lesbian, gay and bisexual youth in Hong Kong are subjected in schools. The book identifies possibilities for new alliances that can interrupt damaging neo-liberal perspectives on youth, sexuality and citizenship.
