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In this accessible and engagingly written book, Vanessa May invites readers into the rich world of thought, research and study of the highly diverse phenomenon of families and family life. The book explores what is and has been understood by 'family' in different sociocultural contexts and how family life intersects with social spheres such as the state, the labour market and the economy. Alongside broad social developments such as (post)colonialism and austerity and their connections with changing family patterns, the book engages interdisciplinary work on time, embodiment and materiality in order to offer a multidimensional perspective on the day-to-day lives of families. Drawing from research in the Global North and the Global South, the text carefully considers how people approach the study of families and thus offers insight into the shape of mainstream family studies today.
The book offers a timely intervention into current debates within family studies and suggests avenues of investigation that deserve further attention, and will be an invaluable resource to students and scholars alike.
List of contents
1 Introduction
2 Cultural Variation in Family Forms
3 Conceptualizing 'Family' in Euro-American Research
4 Governing Families
5 The Embodied and Material Dimensions of Family Life
6 Families Located in and Moving through Space
7 Families in Time
8 Conclusion
About the author
Vanessa May is Professor of Sociology at the University of Manchester.
Report
'This book is interdisciplinary and inquisitive at its core, taking the field of family studies as an open question rather than an already structured and cleared path. It presents the messiness of families as they really are.'
Rin Reczek, The Ohio State University
'Vanessa May pushes the boundaries of family studies to uncharted territories. Her beautifully written book is paradigm-shifting, meticulously researched, theoretically sophisticated and driven by a profound desire for a different sociology of family life. Families is a rigorous, groundbreaking book that should be read widely and repeatedly.'
Kinneret Lahad, Tel Aviv University
'Families challenges us to identify and critically examine the norms that guide our investigation into the family as a practice, providing a template to avoid ethnocentric analysis. This book should be core reading in undergraduate and graduate classes in family studies.'
Rhacel Salazar Parreñas, University of Southern California
