HackMDForms of Reciprocity
In the context of discussing Relationship Elements, forms of reciprocity can be understood as those Relationship Elements where each might reasonably expect of the other in terms of each person accepting responsibility for the welfare of the other.
Affinity responsibilities
Relationships commitments where each person accepts responsibility for the contributing to the other person's capacity to navigate the impacts of one or more of the contexts that contributes to their affinity intimacies.
Availability responsibilities
The degree that each person takes responsibility for being available to another in terms of both the frequency and intensity of interaction.
This type of description can be used to clarify differing expectations about how and when another person will be available to you in specific ways and negotiating how to balance these differences in ways that sustains the relationship in mutually valued ways. Sometimes the bandwidth of availability each person can expect from another for specific elements of the relationship emerge in practice without explicit negotiation. Other times, specific communication protocols are used to clarify these expectations. Also see Expectation Agreements.
Domestic responsibilities
A description of the degree to which a relationship dynamic includes sharing personal space. This can include various domestic intimacies where a sense of connectedness emerges from navigating how each other’s personal routines overlap within a shared space.
Entanglement responsibilities
A description of the degree that a relationship involves experiences where one or more aspect of life (physical, emotional, or intellectual) incorporates agreements around specific areas of interdependence and/or areas of enmeshment with another person. Degree of entanglement can impact relationship recognition.
There is also potential that areas of enmeshment sometimes form when entanglement dynamics are either legally binding (business partnership, co-parenting, co-ops, etc) or become entrenched such that to disentangle the relevant elements of the relationship would create significant structural instability in the lives of those involved (temporarily).
Examples include:
- Entanglement dynamics where each person is exclusively dependent on the other for the majority of their experiences of intimacy and mutual aid.
- Entanglement dynamics where each person depends heavily on the same set of pooled resources and support structures (income, housing, produce, social network, professional network, etc.,)
- Established connections where a relationship dynamic has become established such that the forms of intimacy and forms of mutual support can be expected to continue unless explicitly agreed otherwise (e.g., intentional friendships, comets, partners, etc.,).
Virtue Committments
A key characteristic of some relationships is the mutual commitment to the virtue of 'cultivating character' by supporting each other's efforts at growing towards the people they want to be.
Interdependence responsibilities
Areas of interdependence can form when specific aspects of other relationship-elements come to function as a structural-feature within each person life more generally such that if that element of the relationship was no longer available it would be experienced as a loss.
To clarify these structural dynamics, it can help to identify:
- Those areas where each person wants to share responsibility for a given aspect of the future being co-created (and agree to negotiate how these function as relevant).
- Those areas where each person wants to explicitly retain the autonomy to make independent choices without negotiating the potential consequences for others (even if agreeing to consult with others about the potential impact of them to inform the decision).
Examples where people might want interdependence include:
- When specific forms of intimacy within a relationship become valued such that other aspects of life are willingly adjusted to ensure the ongoing possibility of these forms of intimacy continuing
- Making explicit agreements about the forms of mutual support that each person takes responsibility for, such that other aspects of life need to be adjusted to ensure the ongoing possibility of meeting that responsibility
Examples of areas people might want independence (and the implications):
- To ensure the autonomy to make choices to live alone (not available for some domestic forms of intimacy), maintaining financial autonomy (not available for entanglement of finance dynamics), and not wanting to parent (not available for forms of intimacy that can emerge through co-parenting).
- Having the autonomy to co-design relationships with other people without needing anyone’s permission to commit to any specific element of those relationships
Solidarity responsibilities
Dynamics where a person takes responsibility for leveraging their privilege in a specific area to develop constructive strategies that support another person to navigate the structural inequalities they face.
Support responsibilities
Dynamics that incorporate one or more forms of mutual support in ways where each person can have a reasonable expectation that, availability and capacity permitting, the other will provide a specific form of support. It is likely that there are asymmetries in the forms of support provided by each person to the other, but the overall balance of support can still be equitable. There are many different forms of mutual aid.
Visibility (recognition responsibilities)
Recognition of the relationship as valuable to those involved is often required for forming agreements about the structural dynamics of a relationship. However, to be recognised as a valued relationship by others there is a degree of visibility that is typically required. The type of visibility may differ depending on the scale of recognition wanted.
Note that there are many scales at which a relationship could be recognised by others – recognition within shared community (e.g., queer kinship or spaceships), socially (e.g., recognition as a ‘couple’), within extended family (e.g., partnerships), for immigration, inheritance, and insurance (e.g., financial entanglement), legal recognition (e.g., marriage, business partnership), etc. In all cases, visibility impacts recognition. For example, functioning as a ‘couple’ socially (e.g., arriving and leaving events together; openly making joint decisions; listing a relationship on social media, publicly celebrating events in a relationship), creates couple privilege in the form of social recognition (people will ask after the other person, automatically invite both people to events rather than one or the other, etc., commiserate with one of the people is the couple dissolves that aspect of their relationship, etc.,) as well as de-facto legal recognition (such as with immigration, insurers, employers, etc.,).
Next Steps
- Explore Forms of Mutual Support elements of maintaining relationship connections
- Return to Maintaining Connections
- Return to Introduction to Relationship Elements
- Return to the Overview of Resources for Customising Intentional Relationships
- Return to the List of Contents for Resources for Customising Intentional Relationships
