Topic: Anthropology has traditionally studied domestic life under the rubric of "kinship" with a focus on the family as a central human institution. But in the last 15 years this central tradition has been eroded by the growth of new scholarship on gender and households. On one hand, studies of gender challenge the primordial nature of the family, and on the other, household studies have captured the economic and ecological territories that used to belong to kinship.
There is tremendous vitality and ferment in these new fields, as scholars tackle new issues, explore new topics and attack important issues that anthropology has traditionally ignored. But like all growing and active fields, there is still no textbook, no dogma, no established body of terminology, theory or method. Once they leave the safe territory of kinship for the topics of gender and households, anthropologists find themselves contending with scholars from other fields - history, sociology, literary theory, demography, economics, development studies, and even home economics. Each field has its own traditions, concepts and methods for studying household and gender. It is difficult, shifting terrain.
What seems to be emerging is a field that is directly concerned with the interactions between social form and individual human action (structure and agency to use Giddens' terms). A typical question might be, how do socially prescribed gender roles actually affect peoples' behavior? And how do people resist and challenge those social prescriptions and rules in ways that change them? These kinds of questions are central in many of the social sciences right now, and many scholars perceive that domestic life is at the very center of the problem. But beneath this very fragile consensus there is little agreement. In collecting syllabi from colleagues from their courses on kinship, households and gender, I find an amazing diversity in subject matter, readings and approaches.
This Seminar: This year we will approach issues of household organization through the window of a more limited topic, migration and wage work in the global economy. We will pay special attention to the crucial role of households in the spread of factory capitalism around the world, in the movement of vast numbers of workers across regions, and the emergence of new forms of gender inequality. I have chosen this particular focus for its relevance to real-world problems, but also because the ties that bind households together as social and economic units become more visible when those bonds are stretched in time and space.
My own research interests at present are moving towards the household as a consumption unit. I am interested in the ways household members cooperate and conflict in spending and consuming. I will bring as much of this material as possible into class discussions.
Most of the books I've chosen are fairly dense and demanding, and they require close attention even if you have a good background in the authors' disciplines. This is a directed reading seminar, where we will read and discuss these works, one by one, extracting the maximum possible benefit from our critiques. So, our main goal for the semester will be to read and discuss these seven volumes. At times there will also be supplementary articles and papers for us to read. I will rarely lecture to you, though at times I may monopolize the discussion. Students will take turns in summarizing particular readings and leading general discussion, often on topics assigned in advance. The exact way we go about scheduling discussions and class presentations will depend on the size of the seminar and the interests of the participants.
Required Texts available in IU Bookstore
:Buijs, G. 1996 Migrant Women. Berg.
Salaff, J. 1995 Working Daughters of Hong Kong. Columbia U.P.
Hoodfar, H. 1997 Between Marriage and Market. U. California P.
Pessar, P. 1995 A Visa for a Dream. Allyn & Bacon.
Folbre, N. 1994 Who Pays for the Kids? Routledge.
Dwyer, D. and J. Bruce (eds.) 1988 A Home Divided. Stanford.
Coontz, S. 1992 The Way we Never Were. Basic.
: 20% of your grade in this course will be based on your participation in discussions, 20% will be based on you performance in class presentations and oral summaries. The other 60% of your grade will be based on written work.I assume that the course materials will relate in some way to each student's research interests. If you are in the process of putting together your own research proposal, your written work for this semester can be aimed at furthering your goals. You may produce a thorough annotated bibliography on a chosen topic and a research proposal, or a topical problem-oriented paper that outlines theoretical issues and important literature relating to your chosen problem.
The alternative assignment, if you are not furthering your own research program, is to help me further my research. Specifically, I am presently writing a book called "Consuming the Family" along with Orvar Lofgren, and we are looking for detailed case studies, both ethnographic and historical, that detail the ways households conduct their daily consumption activities.
Disclaimers
: You are responsible for keeping up with the readings and for attending class regularly. Late assignments will be accepted, but grades will be reduced. Incompletes are only given with good reason, and if I am notified two weeks before the final exam date.I am always available for consultation and discussion in my office. Please don't wait until the last minute to discuss problems, readings, or issues with me! I am always very busy, but I will always make time to talk about something important, except during the last three weeks of the semester when I have very little time available.
Email is often the best way to ask me brief questions, to check on assignments, or to make short comments. If you miss class, contact me by email to find out if you have been assigned some discussion for the next week.
I will make up a class mailing list early in the semester and will use it constantly to send you messages about current events, bibliographies, assignments, and course readings. I will be happy to forward messages from class members to the entire group; lets use this resource as much as possible.
Other Texts
: I have chosen the books this semester because they are recent, topical, and provocative. I have taught this course several times before with a different focus each time, so I have used different sets of books. Below are past readings, which may be of interest to you.Goodnow, J. and J. Bowes, Men, Women, and Household Work. Oxford University Press. 1994.
Reisman, P., First Find Your Child a Good Mother. Rutgers University Press. 1992.
Netting, R., Smallholders, Householders. Stanford University Press. 1993.
Kabeer, N. Reversed Realities. Verso. 1994.
Collier J., and S. Yanagisako, Gender and Kinship: Essays Toward a Unified Analysis. Stanford University Press. 1987.
England, P. and G. Farkas, Households, Employment, and Gender: A Social, Economic and Demographic View. Aldine. 1986.
Wilk, R., The Household Economy: Reconsidering the Domestic Mode of Production. Westview. 1989.
Donham, D., History, Power, Ideology: Central Issues in Marxism and Anthropology. Cambridge University Press. 1990.
Sabean, D., Property, Production, and Family in Neckarhausen,1700-1870. Cambridge University Press. 1990.
I want to be as flexible as possible in approaching these books, so this schedule is not graven in stone, and we can also change the order of reading if it seems appropriate. We have 13 class meetings during the semester, after our initial session. The first three weeks will be spent on general issues raised by xeroxed readings which will be available in the Geography library in the basement of the student building. I will be out of town for two class sessions (November 5 and 12); I hope to reschedule one of these, and we will discuss what to do with the other one.
Sept. 3 Class introduction
Sept. 10,17,24 Reserve Readings
What is a Household?
Issues of Gender and Power
Structure and Dynamics
Oct. 1 Coontz
Oct. 8-15 Dwyer and Bruce
Oct 22 Folbre
Oct 29 Pessar
Nov. 5 TBA
Nov. 12 Bujis (session to be rescheduled)
Nov. 19 Hoodfar
Dec. 3 Salaff
Dec. 10 Finish discussions
December 17 2:45-4:45 PM - presentation of class projects