The social construction of twinship I

family, parents and siblings

pp. 79-100

in: Elizabeth A. Stewart, Exploring twins, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 2003

Abstract

The preceding chapters have identified and analysed the ways in which a variety of disciplines and discourses have viewed, studied and evaluated the phenomenon of twinship. In discussing the findings, arguments and interpretations of each discourse, we noted a recurrent issue: the identification of a distinctively social dimension of twinship. In Part II, I want to focus upon that issue and set out the argument for the inescapably (but not, please note, the exclusively) social character of twinship.