Dear all,

Please see below (and attached flyer) details of CIGS' (School of Sociology and Social Policy University of Leeds) first seminar of the academic year,'Enduring Love?: Relationship work and practices of intimacy in long-term couple relationships', which will be given by Dr. Jacqui Gabb (O.U) on Wednesday 15th October 4-5 pm in room 12.25 the Social Sciences Building. 

This is a joint seminar with the Centre for Research on Family, Life-Course and Generations (FLAG). 

A full list of this year's CIGS seminars will be sent out shortly (as will details of our annual lecture), though confirmed dates for your diary are:

Nov 12th: Prof. Angelia Wilson (University of Manchester)
Jan 28th: Dr. John Mercer (Birmingham University)
11th February: Dr Alison Phipps (University of Sussex) 

With best wishes,
Sally

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Enduring Love? 
Relationship work and practices of intimacy in long-term couple relationships
Dr Jacqui Gabb 
(The Open University)
Wednesday 4-5pm, 15th October 2014
Room 12.25 Social Sciences Building
Abstract: 
Using a rich palette of qualitative methods and a large scale online survey, the Enduring Love? project has been studying how couples experience, understand and sustain long-term relationships in contemporary Britain, paying particular attention to the ways in which gender, parenthood and generation shape experience. In this presentation, I will explore the relationship work that couples do and how this serves to sustain their long-term relationships. Relationship work here is more than the drudgeries of domesticity. It offers couples the opportunity to embrace their relationship – through the pleasures of physical closeness; and to nurture their relationship - emotionally, practically, and symbolically through practices of togetherness which carve out shared time and create couple memories. Focusing attention on the everyday practices that couples do and the material conditions which shape these personal lives, our conceptualisation of relationship work thus inculcates ideas of work and capital whilst keeping a keen eye on the intensity of emotions. Across the dataset, it was the personal meanings of relationship work that were valued more than their cultural reference points. Commercialised celebrations like Valentine’s Day or grandiose romantic displays from Interflora and/or the ‘guilty’ petrol station bunch of flowers were less fondly received than small acts of kindness. Knowing gestures and familiar relationship practices demonstrated intimate depth of understanding and investment in the long-term couple relationship.
ALL WELCOME
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Dr Sally Hines
Associate Professor of Sociology and Gender Studies, and Director of the Centre for Interdisciplinary Gender Studies

School of Sociology and Social Policy
University of Leeds
Leeds
LS2 9JT

T +44 (0)113 343 38273
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