Living together, loving together: Pet families in the 21st century

Abstract

This paper explores the configuration of families between humans and companion animals, focusing on the shifting domestic dynamics and the rise of pet families in urban milieus. These configurations represent characteristic ways of living in the context of youth middle class sectors in the 21st century. At a methodology level, we conducted a survey, 27 in-depth interviews, and a review of 3,000 profiles on social networks and dating apps of youth users from Buenos Aires and Mexico City. Over the past decades, family subjectivation devices have undergone a global transformation. While these changes coexist with classical arrangements, especially in large cities, there is an increasing prevalence of affective bonds, forms of cohabitation, economic agreements, vital commitments, and even decisions regarding having or not having children that overflow the historical meanings of the family. Therefore, the construction of analyses such as “ways of living together” seeks to decenter the family configuration as the sole matrix of analysis by linking these practices with broader transformations that can be contemplated within the realm of “the common.”