”Ohana betyder familj, familj betyder att ingen lämnas utanför eller glöms bort” : en normkritisk studie av familjekonstruktion på folkbibliotek

Sammanfattning: The concept of family is heterogeneous and multifaceted, but is often portrayed as homogeneous. The aim of this study is to investigate whether the image of family in the library environment is open and broadminded enough to accommodate all the different individuals who visit the library. To investigate how the concept of family is produced in a children's library environment, I conducted semi structured interviews with six librarians, and observed five children´s libraries. The study, which is a qualitative small-N study has been conducted on a limited number of public libraries and is performed with an intersectional and queer theory perspective. The focus has been on norms, normality, normativity and heteronormativity. The image of family that emerged most clearly in the study was the image of the western heterosexual constellation. Interviews with children´s librarians showed that other family constellations are welcome in the library environment, but is usually treated as a project or as themes. The norms concerning the concept of the family is clear: family equals two Swedish born heterosexual parents with biological children. Norms regarding gender and ethnicity became clear in, among other things, the ideas that the mother is expected to be the one who is at home during the baby's first months and that visitors with a native language other than Swedish are uninterested by the library and need more engagement from the librarians to find their way to the library and its activities. There is thus a normative approach to the concept of family in the library environment, which affect how the visitors can recognize and experience their own situation- either as normal or abnormal.