Durable despite tension: Adult sibling relationships within family figurations

Abstract

This article analyses adults’ experiences of sibling relationships in the context of the network of family and kin relations – namely, family figurations. In sociological research, there has been growing interest in qualitatively investigating siblings, a theme that was long overshadowed by the interest in intergenerational ties. This study contributes to the discussion on adult sibling relationships as significant and interconnected with other family relationships in individuals’ lives. Drawing upon Elias’ concept of figuration and Smart’s concept of the embeddedness of family relationships, I examine how sibling relationships are experienced in the life stage of family formation. Analysing 32 research interviews with women and men from 16 couples, the article shows three distinct dynamics of how sibling relationships are connected to family figuration. The study contributes to our understanding of how sibling relationships are experienced and lived as embedded within other family relationships. Furthermore, it demonstrates how figuration and embeddedness, two central concepts in family sociology, can be brought together to understand personal relationships in contemporary society.

Introduction

This article focuses on the sibling relationships of women and men in the life stage of family formation, living in Finland, primarily in the metropolitan area of the Helsinki, the capital city. I analyse people’s experiences of their adult sibling relationships as intertwined and embedded, as Smart (2007) characterised family relationships. I do this by focusing on accounts of sibling relationships as lived within the context of the larger network of interconnected family relationships, that is, within family figurations (see Elias, 1978 [1970]).

In previous research, the significance of siblings in the formation of one’s identity during childhood and adolescence has been demonstrated (Davies, 2023; Edwards et al., 2006; McIntosh and Punch, 2009; Winther and Larsen, 2021). In adulthood, siblings often provide support, help, care and advice to each other (Eriksen and Gerstel, 2002; Mauthner, 2005) or are a significant part of each other’s safety net (Cicirelli, 1995; Connidis, 2020). In the context of bereavement, Towers (2023) noted that the significance of sibling relationships over the life course is not always acknowledged. Davies (2023: 40–42) stated that for a long time, siblings were left aside within sociological research in favour of studying intergenerational ties; however, there has been a growing interest in sibling relationships and their significance and value (see Blake et al., 2023; Gulløv and Winther, 2021; Sýkorová, 2024; Towers, 2023; Winther and Larsen, 2021). This study contributes to this line of research by scrutinising experiences of adult sibling relationships at the specific life stage of family formation.

In contemporary Finland, adults’ sibling ties appear to be relatively strong, often involving reciprocal help and support (Tanskanen and Danielsbacka, 2020). However, the Nordic welfare state provides a safety net for individuals during life transitions or when facing difficulties such as unemployment or sickness (Forsberg, 2005; see also Eydal and Kröger, 2010) and everyday life does not rely on siblings’ help practices. Young people typically move out from their family home to live on their own at a relatively young age; in 2022, the estimated average age at which individuals moved from their parents’ home in Finland was 21.3 years old (compared with 26.4 years old which is the estimated average age in the European Union as a whole), and this represents the youngest such age among EU countries (Eurostat, 2023). Consequently, siblings rarely share the same household in adulthood. In a previous study with the same data as used in this article, individuals’ understandings of who belonged to their family showed that siblings can be considered as family members – or left out from the definition of family (Luotonen and Castrén, 2018). This indicates flexibility in how sibling relationships in contemporary Finland are lived and understood.

By focusing on sibling relationships during the early years of marriage, the study explores the ways in which sibling relationships are lived as connected to other relationships, of which the couple relationship is often valued the most in cultural hierarchy (Roseneil et al., 2020). The data were generated in a research project focusing on different-sex couples’ family and friendship relations and relationship networks, and how these changed during family formation years. The same couples participated in the study at two points of time; first, around the time of their wedding (for findings, see Castrén, 2019; Maillochon and Castrén, 2011), and second, after being married for some years. In this article, I utilise the data generated at the second time point, wherein 32 individual interviews were conducted, with the men and women from 16 couples. While the article focuses on individuals’ experiences of their sibling relationships, the couple is treated as the setting in which individuals’ experiences and accounts emerge (see Layder, 2006: 272–282). Social life can be rather strongly organised around the couple (Ketokivi, 2012), and the setting of the couple thus provides resources and, at the same time, sets expectations and boundaries on individuals’ social lives and, for example, ways of keeping in contact with siblings. Drawing from the interviews and additional data from the same research participants, I analyse accounts of sibling relationships. I pay specific attention to family figurations which these relationships are part of; to changes within figurations; and, finally, to how shared experiences and memories shape the way sibling relationships are understood. I show how contemporary sibling relations can be made sense of with conceptualisations of figuration and embeddedness.

Understanding the embeddedness of sibling relationships with the concept of figuration

Davies (2023: 77) stated that siblings help us to understand how identity is not only socially constructed – genealogy and the sharing of blood are significant for identity. Sibling relationships have several dimensions, and in consequence, they can be highly ambivalent (Davies, 2019; see Lüscher, 2011). In older age specifically, conflicts tend to give way to more amicable ties as people try to maintain significant relationships (for a review, see Gilligan et al., 2020). However, in her study on aged individuals’ sibling relations, Sýkorová (2024) found that sibling relations are balanced with the interests and autonomy of families of procreation. The rules of genealogical relatedness and the rule of the primacy of the marital bond must be reconciled, which might create ambivalence (Sýkorová, 2024). This reflects what Smart (2011; see also Davies, 2019) called the ‘stickiness’ of family relationships. Smart (2007: 45) argued that people’s lives become embedded at a material, emotional and metaphorical level, and consequently, relationships become more enduring. The embeddedness of relationships means that people’s lives only acquire meaning in relation to other lives, both past and present (Smart, 2007, 2011). Bourdieu (1996) noted that a family feeling requires both practical and symbolic work, involving daily practices as well as more occasional celebrations. In this way, lives become entangled, and embedded, creating what Carsten (2000) calls relatedness, in other words, being a significant part of each other’s lives. However, embeddedness is not simply positive (Smart, 2007: 137); sometimes the parties may wish the relationship to end, but because of embeddedness, it becomes difficult or even impossible (cf. Offer and Fischer, 2018). Smart (2007: 45) noted that blood connections specifically have a tenacity connected to similarities in physical resemblance, attitude or a sense of values (see also Mason, 2018). Regarding siblings, this can be seen in how reflections of similarities and differences are a pivotal part of how both individuals and public discourse make sense of siblings (Davies, 2023).

Elias’ (1978 [1970]) process sociology provides particularly useful analytical tools for studying sibling relationships as embedded in a larger web of relationships. Elias’ theoretical work on figuration has been applied to developing a configurational ¹ approach to personal relationships (Castrén and Ketokivi, 2015; Widmer et al., 2008). The approach has been empirically applied in numerous studies, such as in a study among stepfamilies (Castrén and Widmer, 2015) or in a study mapping unmarried mothers’ conceptions of their newborn’s family (Helin et al., 2022). However, sibling relationships rarely emerge as the focus of analysis among studies using a figurational approach, Sýkorová’s (2024) study being an exception. The core concepts of Elias’ sociological thinking are interdependence and process (see Mennell and Goudsblom, 1998: 36), which are also present in his most famous work, an analysis of the civilising process of Western Europe (Elias, 1994 [1939]). Elias distinguished interdependence, on the one hand, and interaction, on the other, highlighting that interdependence occurs on multiple levels (Mennell and Goudsblom, 1998: 36–39). For Elias (1994 [1939]: 16), people cannot be separated from society; instead, people are society. This catches the main idea of Elias’ thinking and highlights the need to study the individual as part of a larger collective without excluding one or the other. Elias’ (2009 [1986]) concept of figuration refers to any pattern created by a group of interdependent people. Constant change is a characteristic of figuration, and this change can occur rapidly or slowly, but is often unplanned and unforeseen (Elias, 1978 [1970]: 147, 152). Empirically, Finch and Mason (1993, 2000), for example, showed how kinship relations change in a slow process involving negotiations. Elias’ conceptualisation makes visible the flux of change within any figuration, highlighting the processual nature of figurations and the relationships within them.

Specifically, Elias (1978 [1970]: 135) theorised about the change within a figuration using the concept of valency, a term derived from the natural sciences. Individuals simultaneously possess several valencies, all directed at other people; some are already connected, and others remain open. Valencies are saturated and then again saturated, forming long-term or temporary connections (Elias, 2009 [1969]). When a person leaves a figuration and a valency remains open, or when that open valency later connects to a new person, the power balance of the person’s entire figuration changes (Elias, 1978 [1970]: 136). This resonates with previous research findings on siblings, such as changes in sibling relationships following the death of a parent (Hank, 2021; see also Mauthner, 2005). In their study of the children of divorced parents living multi-locally and having siblings in different homes, Winther and Larsen (2021) pointed out that sibling relations shifted, extended to multiple homes and involved the sharing of homes, space and materialities (see also Palludan and Winther, 2017). Applying the idea of processual thinking to examining sibling relationships necessitates paying attention to how the changing structure of a figuration is connected to the experiences of sibling relationships.

In this study, I analyse the embeddedness of sibling relationships (cf. Smart, 2007, 2011) by using the conceptual framework of figuration (cf. Elias, 1978 [1970]). I apply Elias’ perspective to examine experiences of the sibling relationships of women and men who live as a heterosexual married couple, with or without children. At the same time, the couple is embedded within the larger network of family relationships, on both spouses’ sides. Elias’ conceptualisation provides the means to remain analytically attuned to how individuals’ experiences of their sibling relationships emerge in the relational processes that take place within the flux of everyday lives that are, for the participants of this study, experienced and made sense of in the setting of the couple and as part of family figurations.

Data and methods

To apply Elias’ figurational sociology, I take advantage of the (con)figurational approach (Castrén and Ketokivi, 2015; Widmer, 2010; Widmer et al., 2008). The approach empirically and methodologically highlights the importance of examining both the individual experiences of relationships and the structure of the figuration of which these relationships are part (Castrén and Ketokivi, 2015). The primary data for analysis consist of 32 research interviews with 32 individuals – 16 women and 16 men, forming 16 couples. I also draw from two additional datasets generated with the same group of research participants.

The data used for this article were generated over 2014–2015. The semi-structured interviews lasted 1 to 2 hours and were conducted in the interviewees’ homes, in university premises or at an interviewee’s workplace, ² and they were preceded by the participants’ informed verbal consent. The interview topics included sociability with family, kin, friends, neighbours and colleagues, practical and emotional support, and modes of contact (for findings on friendship, see Luotonen, 2023). Specific questions about siblings were included, such as ‘Is your relationship with your siblings, and their spouses and families, different now, compared with the time before you got married and had a child?’ The interview guide also included name-generator questions, for example, ‘Who provides practical help when you need babysitting? Or when you need to lend tools?’ The questions thus concentrated more on how sibling relationships were lived as part of everyday lives rather than focusing on abstract reflections on siblinghood. Given that sibling relations was one topic among several other topics benefits the research setting in two ways. First, people did not sign up for the interview based on feeling that they had something to say specifically about their sibling relations; consequently, the data represents a variety of sibling relationships, regardless of the degree of closeness and the frequency of interactions. Second, the interviewees made sense of their sibling relationships within the context of discussing family, kin and friends. The focus was on the individual views on relationships with family and friends; therefore, the research participants were interviewed individually.

Two additional datasets were used. First, at the end of the interview, the interviewer asked about each interviewee’s personal understanding of who belonged to their family, using the family network method (see Widmer, 2010) which is a tool for systematically mapping an individual’s understanding of their family members. In addition to listing names, questions concerning, for example, age, gender and the relationship category (such as brother, friend) are asked (for a thorough analysis, see Luotonen and Castrén, 2018). Second, following the interviews, the couples received a questionnaire in which both spouses provided detailed information regarding the people in their network, including, for instance, the frequency of contact and background information for each member in the network. Thirteen out of the 16 couples filled in the questionnaire.

The interviewees were 26 to 41 years old, all but two were white and the majority had completed either a bachelor’s degree or a master’s degree or they were still studying. Fourteen out of the 16 couples lived in the Helsinki metropolitan area in Finland. Altogether, 24 of the interviewees were employed full-time, while the remaining eight were either on family leave, employed part-time, unemployed, students or fell into some other category. Their occupations included, for instance, family counsellor, musician, project manager, accountant and occupational health nurse. In general, they represent a rather homogeneous group vis-à-vis possessing reasonable economic and social resources, as well as regarding the institutional family setting: 12 of the couples were parents and none had children from previous relationships. Out of 32 interviewees, 30 had siblings. Among these, 14 of the interviewees had one sibling, eight of the interviewees had two siblings and five of the interviewees had three siblings. One of the interviewees had four siblings and two had five siblings. Most siblings were a few years younger or older. All the interviewees had lived in Finland during their childhood, mostly with both parents. However, many had experienced their parents’ divorce or separation, had a parent with a new partner and sometimes had stepsiblings. In this study, I analyse how the research participants themselves make sense of their sibling relations, whether biological or not. Similarly, for example, Edwards et al. (2006) studied sibling relationships as self-defined relationships. To conclude, the self-defined siblings among the interviewees consisted of biological full siblings, biological half-siblings, and siblings who had grown up in the same family but were not genealogically related. ³

I applied abductive analysis (Timmermans and Tavory, 2012) to analyse the interview data. As such, relevant theoretical concepts and discussions served as a loose framework from the beginning of the analytical process, but no specific concepts guided the early analysis. The methods of abductive analysis involve revisiting the phenomenon, defamiliarisation and alternative casing (Timmermans and Tavory, 2012). Using the Atlas.ti software programme, I completed two rounds of thematic coding. On the first round, I specifically paid attention to themes that were repeated in the interview accounts, also noting the interviewees’ varying accounts of any specific theme. On the second round of coding, my attention was more guided by theoretical discussions. To grasp the outsider perspective on sibling relationships (Castrén and Ketokivi, 2015) – specifically, to gain a more detailed picture of interviewees’ family figuration – I used the systematic information provided by network questionnaires as well as the data gained from the family network method. These additional data provided the specific relational setting for each interviewee within which I could reflect upon their interview accounts. In this article, the focus is on individuals’ accounts of their sibling relationships (for a comparative analysis of spouses’ family understandings, see Luotonen and Castrén, 2018).

In what follows, I use pseudonyms for all names to ensure the anonymity of the interviewees and persons within their figurations. I have translated each of the interview quotes appearing in this article from Finnish to English.

Sibling relationships are durable within changing family figurations

The analysis of the interview data revealed three distinct dynamics between sibling relationships and family figurations which all contribute to understanding the embeddedness of sibling relationships. First, I show how relationships characterised by tensions can be sustained by family figuration. Second, I demonstrate that a dynamic of change beyond a dyadic sibling relationship, situated elsewhere in the family figuration, can generate change in a sibling relationship. Third, I analyse how shared experiences and memories intertwine with the dynamic of family figuration, influencing how people make sense of sibling relationships.

Durability despite tensions

Some interviewees met their siblings almost exclusively when visiting a parent at the same time or at family gatherings. Jaakko, 41 years old and living with his wife in a suburb, has one brother, Tuomo. They are both childless. Jaakko describes their relationships as follows:

We [Jaakko and Tuomo] meet at times when we [Jaakko and his wife] visit my mum and Tuomo also visits. But we don’t have much contact; he’s not very close to me, my brother [laughs]. It’s not like we have a bad relationship or anything, but for some reason we don’t keep in contact much. There’s probably something like . . . Our contact endures somehow. You know what people always say: you can’t choose your relatives, but you can choose your friends [laughs].

For Jaakko, it seemed to be difficult to find the words to describe his relationship with his brother; his account illustrates a relationship where contact was kept mostly by the mother, who is the kin keeper. The relationship involved tension because, in the past, Tuomo had several times borrowed small amounts of money from Jaakko which he never paid back. While the analysis demonstrates that asking a genealogically close relative for a loan is considered appropriate by many interviewees, Jaakko’s account illustrates that not paying back causes tension. Moneylending is a sensitive issue that often impacts on the quality of a relationship (Wherry et al., 2019), although the imbalance can sometimes be negotiated without tensions (Wigen, 2023).

Parents and other relatives can function as a buffer or an implicit mediator between siblings whose relationship is marked by tensions or conflicts. This was the case for Kerttu, whose relationship with her only sister had become tense several years earlier, when her sister disapproved of how Kerttu commented on her sister’s partner. In the interview, Kerttu told that after that, tension had emerged with her sister, and they did not meet without at least one of their parents being present. Kerttu went on to say:

I felt so bad at one point, wondering if we’ll ever get along again. But, when my child had a birthday, she [the sister] suggested that we all, my parents and herself, celebrate. Everyone was so happy about being together again and being in contact with one another. [. . . ] I think that we’ll be closer again one day.

Kerttu, her husband, their child, Kerttu’s sister with her child, and Kerttu’s parents all gathered to the birthday party. Managing tensions between the two sisters, and slowly restoring contact, was a joint effort from the larger family figuration, specifically the parents who were involved every time the two sisters met. Restoring contact made not just the two sisters happy, it made everyone in the larger family figuration happy. This makes visible the interdependency of the relationships in Kerttu’s family figuration (cf. Elias, 1978 [1970]). Sibling solidarity (see Cumming and Schneider, 1961) can be violated if moral hierarchies are not respected among siblings (see, for example, Lahad and May, 2021; Mauthner, 2005: 144). Kerttu’s sister expected a greater amount of respect for her choice of a partner, and the sibling tie and the boundaries of the conjugal couple are not easily negotiated (cf. Sýkorová, 2024). Lüscher (2011) noted that ambivalence emerges, for example, when people oscillate between feelings of being hurt or deluded, on the one hand, and finding significance in sibling relationships, on the other hand; the contrast between these two can be strong. For both Jaakko and Kerttu, the family figuration supports these ambivalent sibling relationships by providing opportunities to meet under neutral circumstances. Their accounts imply that, despite ambivalence, the relationship is expected to endure, ebbing and flowing across time, similarly to the sister relationships in Mauthner’s (2005) study.

Enni is in her 30s and lives with her spouse. She has several siblings, one of whom is a half-brother who lives in another town, a few hours’ drive away. Their last encounter took place more than a year previously. Enni describes the situation:

If I phone him – he doesn’t pick up. So, I’ve kind of stopped phoning. I used to occasionally send a postcard from a holiday, but I haven’t even done that lately anymore. I’m somehow frustrated that he doesn’t respond. The only way to contact him would be by going up to his door and ringing the bell. But he lives so far away that doing that isn’t simple. And then again, I feel that our relationship is kind of distant . . .

Enni expresses frustration with the current situation. However, she is not willing to make too much effort; that would not be in line with the missing emotional closeness. For many interviewees, one or both parents, or sometimes a sibling, were described as central kin keepers in family figuration. Differently, Enni and her brother are half-siblings and share only one parent, who has passed away. They do not share other siblings or a family community that would celebrate holidays together or organise meetings. Enni’s example corroborates the significance of family figuration; the absence of support from family and kin can make the sibling relationship vulnerable to rupture. As Edwards and Strathern (2000) noted, when a person drops out of a family sphere, it often happens gradually, without much attention being paid to it happening.

Reflecting on the interview accounts from the perspective of embeddedness (cf. Davies, 2019; Smart, 2011), it seems that figuration has an influence on how tense relationships emerge as durable. Jaakko’s statement that ‘you can’t choose your relatives’ reflects a cultural expectation that despite tensions or disputes, siblings are expected to maintain at least sporadic contact. Expectations of maintaining a relationship can be met in the context of a family figuration; here, it is the interconnectedness of relationships that makes sibling relationships sticky (cf. Davies, 2019; Smart, 2011). Differently, when the ties in a family figuration are loosely connected to each other – or as in Enni’s case, when there are very few connections in the first place – the people involved must make more effort personally to make the relationship endure. The sibling relationship might also become more vulnerable to subtle estrangement (cf. Edwards and Strathern, 2000).

Change in the family figuration gives rise to change in sibling relationships

Sibling relationships are understood in relation to change within the family figuration, both rapid and slow (see Elias, 1978 [1970]). One example of a figurational change being the driving force behind a sibling relationship in motion is the interview account of Asta, who lives in a middle-class suburb of Helsinki with her husband and their toddler. She has two older siblings, and all three live with their partners and children in different cities, a few hours’ drive from each other. Asta’s brother Olli was divorced, and a few years back introduced his new partner, Jessika. Asta recounts the following:

Olli’s divorce and Jessika’s entrance into Olli’s life have brought our whole sibling group closer to one another. Jessika is this wonderful new person I have come to know, and it’s funny somehow how much time we now spend together. My siblings are older than I am, and the age gap now seems less vast, and the differences in our life situations have become less distinct. So quite often we go together [to another city]; Olli and Jessika have a big house where there is room for all of us to stay.

Asta describes her current relationship with her siblings in terms of friendship, involving their spouses, children and Jessika’s children from her previous relationship. The crucial component of this change towards a growing emotional closeness and more frequent contact among siblings was Jessika. Her entrance into the figuration meant that other relationships were reorganised (see Elias, 1978 [1970]: 135–136), leading to the revival of sibling relationships. From Elias’ (2009 [1969]) perspective, this change can be conceptualised as a rather fast process in which an open valency saturated in Asta’s family figuration when Jessika entered, thereby pushing the entire family figuration to change. Here, it can also be noted that material conditions allow the way in which the extended sibling group, including their partners and children, can gather – they drive from different cities to stay in Olli and Jessika’s big house (cf. Bourdieu, 1996).

Similarly, Anssi recounted a change within his sibling relationship. In his case, it was a slow transformation over time, due to several changes within the family figuration. Anssi and his wife have two school-aged children, and they live in a residential area outside a city. Anssi has an older sister, Hanna, who lives with her partner Jarkko at a short driving distance from Anssi. Hanna and Jarkko are very fond of Anssi’s children; after they were born, the siblings established more frequent contact. However, the roots of this change within their relationship lie much further in the past, as Anssi describes:

We used to be rather distant from one another in the past, maybe a bit because of the age difference and because Hanna was really . . . [exhales] She had a pretty difficult youth. She didn’t get along with our parents, especially our dad, she left home very early to live on her own and so on. Now, with Jarkko, it seems that things have kind of worked themselves out. And, we have a completely different relationship now, and she has a completely different relationship with our parents now.

The relationship was strongly affected by Hanna not getting along with their parents as a teenager, whereas good relationships developed within the extended family over time. They also celebrate Christmas together, parents included, every 2 years, and invite each other over for celebrations. An example of closeness and intimacy between siblings was the fact that Hanna participated in the childbirth of Anssi’s and his wife’s child – an event that is usually only shared by the parents of the baby and healthcare professionals in Finland. In Anssi’s account, Hanna’s role as an aunt is also significant in the dynamic of their sibling relationship. Whereas aunthood can be controversial and involve tensions in the boundary-making of a family (see Lahad and May, 2021), here it seems to bind the siblings together.

The significance of the setting of couple to the sibling relationship becomes clear in Anssi’s and Asta’s accounts. It is not just the childhood family that provides the context for lived sibling relationships; the way in which the partner is involved within the family figuration and the partner’s relationships to each of the persons within the figuration can be decisive in how the relationship between the siblings is lived and experienced. Neither Asta nor Anssi describe their relationships with their siblings as dyadic. Instead, they include their own partners, as well as their siblings’ partners, in their interview accounts and make sense of their sibling relationships in the context of couples. Furthermore, Anssi’s account of his sister’s presence at the birth of his child illustrates how the intimacy and confidence in the sibling relationship extended to include the partner who was giving birth.

The example given by Anssi makes it evident that a sibling relationship can be affected by figurational changes that might seem minor when they occur but which together, over a long period of time, bring forth a slow but significant change. In a similar vein, a slow process of change within family and kin was described by Finch and Mason (1993); through implicit negotiations and minor decisions, repeating themselves sometimes over decades, people took on certain family responsibilities. Similarly, here, the slow change taking place over many years remained unplanned and unanticipated but proved to be highly meaningful (cf. Elias, 1978 [1970]: 147). The analysis illustrates how complex figurational dynamics bring about changes in sibling relationships over varying time spans.

Shared experiences and memories shape sibling relationships

Shared experiences since childhood and extending to adulthood are important in how people make sense of their sibling relationships. Mira describes the relationships with her two sisters as follows:

I think I can share everything with [my] sisters. Of course, you share the past with your sisters, they’ve known you throughout your life as a person, so being with them is different from being with people that you have met like six months ago and who know nothing of you in the end. And the tragedies and such that we have experienced within the family, they create a different kind of foundation. If you experience a loss together with someone or experience something that you cry over together, it creates a different kind of connection compared with a more superficial contact.

Later in the interview, when asked about her closest friends, those whom she turns to when needing emotional support, Mira responded:

Well, that’s a good question, which I’ve thought about many times. If I had something that could absolutely not be passed on or revealed, I would say that I would share it with my sisters or my mother. So, it would be people to whom I’m related by blood.

In Mira’s case, a shared family history, including a shared loss or grief, binds siblings together. This reflects Mauthner’s (2005) findings that grief can become a shared experience, creating emotional closeness between sisters. Experiences and emotions shared with siblings are intertwined with a deep knowledge of one another (see Jamieson, 1998); because of this, for Mira, her sisters and mother become her confidants. Mira also mentions being related by blood as a signifier of family belonging, echoing Davies’ (2023) notion of the importance of the blood tie for siblings. However, it is also – or perhaps above all – the accumulation of shared experiences and emotions across time within a family figuration that lies at the heart of the confidentiality and intimacy in Mira’s sibling relationships. Gulløv and Winther (2021) stated that the significance of a genealogical tie is not straightforward as sibling relationships are formed, lived and altered in various everyday practices, extending to various households and across time. Here, however, it becomes particularly visible that a sibling tie is both socially constructed and a blood tie, and these dimensions are entangled in the way people make sense of the relationship (cf. Davies, 2023).

Arttu, living with his spouse and their child, has three siblings. He describes his sibling relationships by comparing them to each other and considering the dynamics during both childhood and adulthood. Arttu’s older sister lives geographically far away; with her, however, he shares a certain sense of connection since they both have children, unlike the other siblings. Arttu thus makes sense of the relationship with his sister in comparison with his other sibling relationships. In a similar vein, he reflects on the relationship with his brother Iiro:

Maybe, in a way, the fact that Iiro doesn’t have children has created distance between us. But it’s not so simple with him because, as kids, we played together a lot and spent a lot of time together. But now, in adulthood, my contact with Iiro is quite infrequent.

While Arttu’s relationship to Iiro is characterised by a growing emotional distance, the comment ‘it’s not so simple’ refers to their shared childhood memories. Arttu described the ways they used to spend summers together as a family; these memories appeared as a part of how he reflected on his sibling relationships in the present. This follows Finch and Mason’s (2000: 165) notion of family relatedness being strongly based on sentiment and memory. Temporal layers are also present in Arttu’s account of the relationship with his sister Anniina, who regularly visits and sometimes babysits, sometimes bringing along her partner. In the following, Arttu reflects on how his sibling relationships are different from his friendships:

My little sister and I are really good friends, but then there’s something different . . . I still strongly feel that I’m the older brother. Like, I have my own vision about what Anniina should do and how she should go forward in her life [laughs]. So, there is a difference. Maybe it can’t be seen in everyday life, but practically, I’m much more concerned about my siblings.

Arttu feels that he has a sense of responsibility for Anniina’s decisions and plans. This makes the relationship ultimately different from a friendship because a pivotal characteristic of friendship, in our modern understanding of it, is equality (Allan, 2008; Jamieson, 1998; Luotonen, 2023). The ambivalence in Arttu’s relationship with Anniina stems not from their dyadic relationship but from the attempt to adjust to new roles within family figuration as two equal siblings and friends (see Lüscher, 2011). Arttu’s account makes visible that sibling relationships can be made sense of in relation to each other, as well as to a shared past and shared present, thereby forming a complex dynamic. It also corroborates previous findings that socially constructed sibling roles deriving from birth order are not fixed and can be negotiated over time (cf. Davies, 2023: 147; Mauthner, 2005). Chronological age can be of minor importance in the social world where age is culturally linked to certain stages and transitions in the life course (Fry, 2003). Arttu’s reflection suggests that, more than age, sharing the same life stage might be more decisive for feeling emotional closeness, while at the same time, temporal layers are significant.

Mira’s and Arttu’s accounts demonstrate that shared experiences that accumulate since childhood are important in how sibling relationships are lived and understood in adulthood. Belonging in the past can create a sense of belonging in the present (May, 2017), and reflecting on the shared past from the perspective of the stickiness of sibling relationships (Davies, 2019; Smart, 2011), it seems clear that the two are connected. A shared past creates a strong basis upon which confidence and emotional closeness between siblings can be built. Furthermore, shared experiences, such as those of a childhood spent together or a powerful experience of a shared loss, emerge not just in the sibling dyad but in the family figuration.

Discussion

This study examined sibling relationships as lived and experienced within family figuration, focusing specifically on different ways in which the interconnectedness of relationships makes sibling relationships embedded (cf. Smart, 2007). The analysis revealed three distinct dynamics of how experiences of sibling relationships were connected to family figuration. First, relationships are expected to last despite tension or conflicts caused by not following implicit codes of conduct reflecting sibling solidarity (see Cumming and Schneider, 1961). The family figuration can function as a mediating power in an ambivalent sibling relationship (cf. Lüscher, 2011), thereby supporting its durability. Respectively, sibling relationships that are not supported by family figuration due to loose ties or scarce resources may become vulnerable to estrangement or rupture. Second, my analysis demonstrates that changes in the figuration, conceptualised by Elias (2009 [1969]) as opening and saturating valencies, change sibling relationships. That is, when a new person (e.g. a sibling’s new spouse) enters the figuration, the changing dynamic of the figuration brings about changes in sibling relationships. Third, sibling relationships are bound to shared experiences in the past that can be decisive for relationships in adulthood. Shared childhood memories can be highly significant in terms of how relationships are experienced and valued in the present (see Mason, 2018; May, 2017; Smart, 2011). Shared memories make sibling relationships embedded in such a way that, even if the relationship is not emotionally close in adulthood, the sense of connection might remain strong.

Sibling relationships are experienced as continuous or, more specifically, durable, and at the same time they are experienced as connected to changes occurring within the network of family and kin. While the analysis reveals a considerable degree of flexibility in how sibling relationships are lived and valued, it also illustrates that the participants of this study wished to keep sibling relationships alive. As Jaakko puts it, ‘the contact endures somehow’, despite tension or ambivalence. However, in the absence of a supporting family figuration, an ambivalent sibling relationship must try to survive on its own. There is individual variety in how sibling relationships are maintained in these circumstances, and for some, the genealogical connection (cf. Davies, 2023) can be the driving force behind keeping the contact alive. While Edwards and Strathern (2000) noted that kinship relations can be gradually excluded from the family sphere, the findings of this study suggest that it can be a complex process. For example, Enni, whose only way to contact her brother was to drive to a distant town and ring his doorbell, seemed reluctant to let go of keeping contact altogether; this illustrates the complex ways in which sibling relationships are embedded and meaningful (cf. Davies, 2019; Smart, 2011). The findings show that even sibling relationships involving tensions or minimal contact are considered enduring, which reflects Davies’ (2023: 84–85) notion of siblings ‘being there’ in the background. The embeddedness of sibling relationships can also be seen in how sibling relationships are made sense of with the help of temporal layers, such as shared childhood memories, as Arttu’s account shows. This is in line with what Mason (2018) argued on the significance of remembering and how a minor stimulus can ‘transport us in time’ in such a way that, for example, a childhood memory becomes vivid and sensory, with the smells and feelings attached to that moment. Mason’s notion reminds us that sibling relationships involve complex temporal, genealogical, emotional and practical dimensions that entwine (see Gulløv and Winther, 2021; Winther and Larsen, 2021). The findings demonstrate how embeddedness works in various ways in people’s accounts of their sibling relationships. With the help of Elias’ (1978 [1970]) conceptualisation of figuration, I have shown the distinct dynamics of the interconnectedness of relationships that allow us to understand how some relationships last and some become more fragile.

Regarding future studies on adult siblings, there is plenty of unexplored territory, one area being how communication technology and social media have rapidly changed the forms and possibly the dynamics of contact between siblings. Moreover, as this study demonstrates, sibling relationships are by no means an isolated area of research; instead, they are interconnected to other relationships and are fluctuating across time, through micro-level change as well as societal change. As Davies (2023) suggested, siblings can provide a perspective from which to analyse central sociological themes; here, I have shown that ambivalence, structural change in family figuration, memory and the blood tie together form different facets of sibling relationships and their connectedness to family figuration.