Pierre-Yves Wauthier

Pierre-Yves Wauthier is a sociologist and anthropologist currently serving as a Postdoctoral Researcher at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales (EHESS) through a fellowship awarded for 2022-2024. He holds multiple research affiliations including as an Associate Member at the Interdisciplinary Laboratory for Solidarity, Societies, Territories (LISST) at the University of Toulouse, Associate Researcher at the Institute of Sociological Research of the University of Geneva, and Associate Researcher at the Interdisciplinary Center for Research on Families and Sexualities of the University of Louvain.

Wauthier's research focuses on the transformation of family structures and relationships in contemporary Western societies. His work examines how individuals are increasingly decoupling traditional conjugal functions—attachment, sexuality, cohabitation, reproduction, and child-rearing—through diverse family arrangements. His research interests include social change, life course trajectories, sexualities, disunions, polyamory, single parenthood by choice, parenting practices, reproduction, and the social construction of reality within contexts of individualization and hypermodernity.

His major publication, Creating a family without becoming a couple: Understanding the heterogenization of family paths (2022), presents thirty-five atypical life paths that demonstrate how contemporary social attributes allow individuals to reconfigure traditional family structures. The book analyzes ideological, economic, and technological developments transforming the family landscape in French-speaking Europe.

• EHESS postdoctoral fellowship (2022-2024)

Wauthier coordinates research activities including the study day 'Families and kinship in the face of environmental upheavals' scheduled for June 5, 2023 in Marseille. His work bridges sociological and anthropological perspectives on family transformations, contributing to theoretical debates about the meaning of couples and families in contemporary society. He teaches and contributes to research activities at the Universities of Louvain and Geneva, focusing on emerging phenomena related to attachment, sexuality, couples, and family structures.

His research laboratory affiliations include the Norbert Elias Center in Marseille where he conducts his postdoctoral research, the LISST laboratory at the University of Toulouse, and interdisciplinary research centers at the Universities of Geneva and Louvain focused on family and sexuality studies.