Weird kinship

This article considers the longing to belong in a weird family of sorts, or, more accurately, in weird kinship with others. It uses the Martinican poet Édouard Glissant’s ideas of errantry, opacity and unknowability to conceptualize ‘weird kinship’ as a transient mode of belonging. It will argue that, weirdly, we can connect with each other in opaque, incoherent structures, in unpredictable shapes of endless, loose wanderings. I will consider Mark Fisher’s definition of ‘the weird’ as that which does not belong in relation to Daniel Oliver’s performance Weird Séance and argue that all of us who have experienced that feeling at some point in our lives can find refuge with each other. Weird kinship is, therefore, I propose, a community of those who do not belong or have felt like outsiders for so long. This community is based not on shared identity, or culture, but rather on the shared vulnerability of not belonging.