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With apologies for cross-posting, please circulate widely
Call for papers for the proposed edited volume:
What’s new about ‘parenting’?
Comparative studies in kinship, self and politics
Editors: Dr. Charlotte Faircloth (U. Kent), Professor Diane Hoffman
(U. Virginia) and Cecilia Tomori (U. Michigan)
Drawing on perspectives from the new kinship studies, medical
anthropology and reproduction, this volume will explore the global
impact and everyday experiences of ‘parenting’.
A trend towards ‘intensive’ parenting has been widely noted by a range
of social scientists working in middle classes milieus across the UK,
US, Australia and Canada, yet the ways in which parents’ and families’
experiences have been affected by this shift – in short, the
transformation of ‘parent’ from a noun to a verb – is not a topic that
has been explored significantly within anthropology. Using a range of
ethnographic examples, this volume seeks to examine the sociocultural
significance of ‘parenting’ as a subject of professional expertise,
and activity in which adults are increasingly expected to be
emotionally absorbed and become personally fulfilled. This novel
collection of essays will locate ‘parenting’ as a central and
contested site where parents’ and children’s personhood, family ties,
and unequal political economic relations are (re-)produced.
Our volume will consider how recent historical transformations
illuminate classic anthropological and sociological questions about
the construction of personhood and selves, in the contexts of kinship,
culture, and political economy. In particular, we ask what kinds of
“mothers,” “fathers,” and “children” are being produced in this new
culture of “parenting”? What moral obligations are entailed in these
categories and what are their consequences for the daily enactment of
kinship? What kinds of cultural assumptions and authoritative claims
are made by ‘parenting experts’ and how do parents negotiate and
experience these expectations in their daily lives? What kinds of
political economic relations are being reproduced through ‘parenting’
and how do these affect the construction of gender, race, and social
class? How does the relationship of ‘parenting experts,’ government
policy targeting ‘parenting,’ and the daily concerns of families as
they engage in ‘parenting’ ultimately shape the ‘nation’ (cf. Carsten
2004, Wade 2007)?
Whilst this ‘intensive parenting’ ideology has emerged from specific
settings, it nevertheless has far-reaching implications. The volume
aims to explore this through a range of cross-cultural ethnographic
examples. We encourage contributions on the themes of parenting,
gender, class and race, from a range of ethnographic locales in
Europe, Canada and the US and particularly those from non-Euro-
American settings. We hope that this comparative perspective will
allow us to address both the local constructions and experiences of
‘parenting’ as well as their collective effects. An ethnographic
methodology will allow the notion of ‘parenting’ to be opened up and
examined in relation to larger cultural themes, through the lens of
everyday practices and material cultures.
Note: This proposal emerges from the recent American Anthropological
Association Meetings in New Orleans (November 2010), and the panel,
‘What’s new about parenting?’ Kinship, politics and identity. Members
of that panel expressed an interest in taking forward the
conversations there in the form of an edited volume; we would welcome
contributions from anyone else wishing to join us. We will be
submitting a proposal to publishers in February 2011, with a view to
publication in 2012. Contributors are asked to submit abstracts of
up to 300 words to the editors, via Charlotte Faircloth ([log in to unmask]
) by Friday 4th February. Please feel free to contact her for further
information.
Dr. Charlotte Faircloth
Mildred Blaxter post-doctoral fellow, Foundation for the Sociology of
Health and Illness
a: SSPSSR, Cornwallis NE, University of Kent, Canterbury UK, CT2 7NF
e: [log in to unmask]
w: http://blogs.kent.ac.uk/parentingculturestudies/
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