So How's the Family?
And Other Essays
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- $20.99
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- $20.99
Publisher Description
In this new collection of thirteen essays, Arlie Russell Hochschild—author of the groundbreaking exploration of emotional labor, The Managed Heart and The Outsourced Self—focuses squarely on the impact of social forces on the emotional side of intimate life.
From the "work" it takes to keep personal life personal, put feeling into work, and empathize with others; to the cultural "blur" between market and home; the effect of a social class gap on family wellbeing; and the movement of care workers around the globe, Hochschild raises deep questions about the modern age. In an eponymous essay, she even points towards a possible future in which a person asking "How’s the family?" hears the proud answer, "Couldn’t be better."
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In this eloquent collection of 13 essays, noted sociologist Hochschild (The Outsourced Self: Intimate Life in Market Times) links public trends such as free market capitalism, branding, and globalization to the intimate world of the family. Exploring the impact of social changes on the family unit's emotional state, she studies "online daters, migrant nannies, commercial surrogate mothers" and other modern phenomena, which serve as catalysts for reflection on changes in public discourse from 1900-2007. Her overriding concern is the ongoing struggle between the demands of the marketplace and the needs of families how people can strengthen bonds to keep their personal lives personal, and how empathy needs to "cross the barriers of class, race, and gender." She highlights the enormous emotional toll (for both mother and child) on female migrant workers from poor countries who leave their own children behind. Grounded in sociology, Hochschild introduces ideas such as an "emotional commons" a rich, social ecology for comprehending how the market of wealthy countries in the "Global North" erodes the social fabric of countries in the Global South and East. The book illuminates the challenges of a deregulated, impersonal global economy and offers suggestions for restoring emotional connections.
