Suchergebnisse

One of the first of its kind, this book compares understandings and experiences of love and intimacy of one distinct cultural group - Gujarati Indians - born and brought up in two different countries. Using in-depth ethnographic fieldwork with middle-class Gujaratis aged between 20 and 30 years of age, it explores their relationship ideals and early experiences of marriage formation. It shows how discourses on what it means to be modern have interacted with pervasive ongoing status ideologies in both the UK and India. In bringing together the findings from both contexts, the book addresses the connections between intimacy, class, globalisation and kinship. Young Gujaratis are concerned not only with global ideals of 'companionate marriage', but also with national and local ideologies of what constitutes a 'respectable' middle-class marriage and family ideal. Such ideals shape not only practices of courtship and relationships, but the very experiences of love and desire

One of the first of its kind, this book compares understandings and experiences of love and intimacy of one distinct cultural group - Gujarati Indians - born and brought up in two different countries. Using in-depth ethnographic fieldwork with middle-class Gujaratis aged between 20 and 30 years of age, it explores their relationship ideals and early experiences of marriage formation. It shows how discourses on what it means to be modern have interacted with pervasive ongoing status ideologies in both the UK and India. In bringing together the findings from both contexts, the book addresses the connections between intimacy, class, globalisation and kinship. Young Gujaratis are concerned not only with global ideals of 'companionate marriage', but also with national and local ideologies of what constitutes a 'respectable' middle-class marriage and family ideal. Such ideals shape not only practices of courtship and relationships, but the very experiences of love and desire.

This article undertakes an in-depth examination into how two couples negotiate the sharing of parental leave, to understand how 'relational resources' may be drawn on in transforming gendered practices. The couples are selected from a longitudinal study of 42 first-time parents taking various combinations of leave. Drawing on a 'listening guide' approach, I analyse the interactions observed in couple interviews with a couple that shares, and another couple that does not share leave. I show that in trying to convince their partners to take leave, both women draw on gendered scripts, either in how the interaction is managed, or by the discourses that are drawn on. Moreover, fathers' work context strongly mediates negotiations, as all participants judge this to trump other considerations regarding leave, reinforcing men's attachment to the workplace. More research is needed to understand how these process shape divisions of paid and unpaid work in the long term.

Recent research suggests that global ideologies of love are shaping marriage practices the world over. In this article I compare the narratives of young (20- to 30-year-old), middle-class Gujarati Indians in the United Kingdom (UK) and India, to examine how these ideals are lived out in two very different contexts. In India, heterosexual monogamous marriage arranged with parental consent emerged as the only legitimate modern form of intimate relations due to a complex conjunction of romantic ideologies and 'traditional' familial marriage preferences. In the UK, participants distanced themselves from any sense of 'arrangement' in their relationships, which seemed to call into question for them the veracity of their love. The social context of the UK both supports and facilitates self-selected 'love marriage' among young people, while the converse is true in India. Global ideologies of romantic love are pervasive, but they are interpreted by individuals within local understandings of appropriate marriage and relationships.

This paper explores young heterosexual Indian Gujaratis' ideals and experiences of intimate relationships in the UK and India, focusing particularly on gender relations. Men and women in both contexts had similar aspirations of intimacy, but women were likely to be more in favour of egalitarian values. What this meant was interpreted differently in India and the UK. In neither setting, however, was gender equality fully realised in the lives of the participants due to both structural and normative constraints. Despite this gap between ideals and experiences, participants portrayed their relationships as broadly equal and conjugal. It appears that the heavy emphasis on love and intimacy is making it difficult for women to negotiate a more egalitarian relationship with their partner, since any 'flaw' in the relationship potentially brings into question its loving foundations. In this way, women tend to ignore or justify the gendered roles and inequalities apparent in their relationships and paint a picture of blissful marital equality despite evidence to the contrary.

Feminism and the Politics of Childhood offers an innovative and critical exploration of perceived commonalities and conflicts between women and children and, more broadly, between various forms of feminism and the politics of childhood. This unique collection of 18 chapters brings into dialogue authors from a range of geographical contexts, social science disciplines, activist organisations, and theoretical perspectives. The wide variety of subjects include refugee camps, care labour, domestic violence and childcare and education. Chapter authors focus on local contexts as well as their global interconnections, and draw on diverse theoretical traditions such as poststructuralism, psychoanalysis, posthumanism, postcolonialism, political economy, and the ethics of care.

Together the contributions offer new ways to conceptualise relations between women and children, and to address injustices faced by both groups.

This article explores the ways couples making the transition to parenthood think about, practise, and assess 'gender equality'. The analysis draws on data from two qualitative, longitudinal projects in the UK with 36 mixed-sex couples, grounded in the sociology of intimacy and parenting culture respectively. Both projects explore gender relations at the transition to parenthood, with recent changes in UK parental leave as a backdrop, to interrogate couples' ideals and practices. In this article, we outline four configurations of equality articulated by couples: 'symmetry', 'breaking gender stereotypes', 'fairness', and 'equality as respect', which were developed through collaborative analysis. We explore how different configurations shape gendered practices in early parenthood. The analysis provides novel insights into the ways in which 'gender equality' is differentially defined and practised; shaped by the political and cultural context in which parents live; and relational in nature – thereby contributing to debates around equality in gendered divisions of paid and unpaid work.

AbstractThis article draws together two studies: one that explores the intimate relationships of young slum-dwelling Dalit women in Mumbai and the other of young middle-class women in Baroda, Gujarat. Using an intersectional lens, we trace the ways that gendered ideals of respectability shape women's freedom of movement and relationships. The comparison produces new insights into the ways that class, caste, and location cut across gender to shape young women's lives in India. We argue that the distinctive positionings of the women structure the ways in which they react to gender norms and the means with which they strategize around them. Middle-class young women strike a 'passive bargain', upholding ideals of respectability by shoring up symbolic capital for a 'good' marriage and class privilege. The Dalit women show more active resistance to an ideal that they struggle to achieve, despite heavy control and surveillance over their movement and relationships. However, contrary to previous research, we show that both groups are beholden and lay claim to similar gendered and intimate ideals.

Le Royaume-Uni a progressivement fait évoluer les droits des pères à un congé de paternité, même si le congé de maternité britannique est l'un des plus longs (cinquante-deux semaines) parmi les pays européens. En avril 2011, le législateur a introduit un congé supplémentaire de paternité, l'Additional Paternity Leave (APL), d'une durée maximale de six mois, que le père peut prendre jusqu'au premier anniversaire de l'enfant si la mère reprend une activité professionnelle avant la fin de son congé de maternité. Cet article s'intéresse au vécu de cinq pères britanniques qui ont été parmi les premiers à recourir à ce dispositif. L'ensemble de l'étude examine les négociations et les expériences de partage du congé au sein du couple, en partant de l'hypothèse selon laquelle l'« intimité » constitue un facteur médiateur dans les rôles genrés et les rôles parentaux. En mobilisant les travaux de la sociologue Arlie Russel Hochschild consacrés à l'économie du don au sein du couple, il apparaît que les négociations relatives à l'APL peuvent relever d'un échange de dons entre les deux parents.

COVID-19 turned the world as we knew it upside down, impacting families around the world in profound ways. Seeking to understand this global experience, Family Life in the Time of COVID brings together case studies from 10 countries that explore how local responses to the pandemic shaped, and were shaped by, understandings and practices of family life. Carried out by an international team during the first year of the pandemic, these in-depth, longitudinal, qualitative investigations examined the impact of the pandemic on families and relationships across diverse contexts and cultures. They looked at how families made sense of complex lockdown laws, how they coped with collective worry about the unknown, managed their finances, fed themselves, and got to grips with online work and schooling to understand better how life had transformed (or not). In short, the research revealed their everyday joys and struggles in times of great uncertainty. Each case study follows the same methodology revealing experiences in Argentina, Chile, Pakistan, Russia, Singapore, South Africa, Sweden, Taiwan, the United Kingdom and the USA. They show how local government responses were understood and responded to by families, and how different cultures and life circumstances impacted everyday life during the pandemic. Ultimately the analysis demonstrates how experiences of global social upheaval are shaped by international and local policies, as well as the sociocultural ideas and practices of diverse families.

Sociologists' Tales brings together the thoughts and experiences of key UK sociologists from different generations of British sociology in reflecting on why they have chosen a career in sociology, how they have managed to do it and what advice they would offer the next generation.