This article discusses the different forms of connections and relatedness between human
beings and animals under the heading: Kinship with animals. It is based on an
ethnographic study of involuntary childlessness and procreative technologies in
Denmark and takes as its starting point the multiple ways childless people make
analogies to the animal kingdom when they reflect on and recount their infertility and
childlessness. As an example infertile men and women draw analogies to animal
reproduction in order to naturalise and legitimise their wish for children, and they
compare themselves to experimental animals in order to express their experiences
with fertility treatment. Some also refer to their actual relationships with their pets
when they consider, for instance, adoption as a solution to their childlessness. The
article demonstrates that the ways childless people “think with” and relate to animals
are but particular manifestations of a more general Western inclination to integrate
pets in human kinship practices and family life. Kinship with animals, however, has
its limitation. While pets can be thought of and treated as children and family members,
they cannot reproduce personal identity and they cannot connect people in time and
ensure genealogical progression and relatedness.
 
