Troubling Families
2018, Sociological Research Online, Vol 23.1
The term, ‘troubling families’, has the scope both to trouble what we
mean by ‘family’ and its continuing power,
while also asking why some particular ‘families’ may be found by some to
be ‘troubling’.
Talking about ‘family’
has been controversial amongst sociologists for several decades, ever since
feminists in the 1980s (e.g. Barrett and McIntosh, 1982; Carby, 1982/1996;
Thorne and Yalom, 1982) started to question its ideological underpinnings, its
intimate hidden (gendered and generational) dynamics of power, and its social
rather than ‘natural’ basis. In Anglophone literatures, the debate about how
sociologists should or should not employ the term has continued back and
forwards more or less ever since, but within these contexts, there seems to be
no denying the continuing central significance of ‘family’ in people’s
imaginaries, and in their everyday lives, as well as in public debates and policies
(Ribbens McCarthy et al, 2008/2012; Gilding, 2010; Gabb and Silva, 2011; Edwards et al, 2012 ; Ribbens
McCarthy, 2012), even as ‘families’ and households
become increasingly diverse. Both significant changes and powerful continuities
are apparent in how people in Anglophone and Western European countries live
their families and relationships.
Paradoxically, these
decades of academic scrutiny of the term, and opening up of the ‘black box’ of
family, have also seen expectations of ‘family’ increasing, alongside ever
expanding idealizations of what ‘childhood’ should entail. These high hopes, or
fantasies, parallel the pervasive moral imperative of prioritising ‘children’s
needs’, whether enunciated by parents/mothers or politicians and policy makers
(Ribbens McCarthy et al, 2000; Gillies, 2014). Those who fail to live up to
‘family’ expectations, particularly in terms of the ‘care and protection’ of
children, may thus find themselves increasingly subject to scrutiny and a
variety of interventions from the State. One such UK initiative, for example,
has formulated a category of ‘troubled families’, defined by reference to a
particular set of characteristics, and constructed as a particularly
‘troublesome’ feature of the contemporary British social fabric, requiring
targeted interventions (Crossley, 2016). But our discussions here (and
elsewhere – Ribbens McCarthy et al, 2013; Ribbens McCarthy et al, 2018; Evans
et al, 2018) seek to ‘trouble’ ‘families’ in quite opposite ways from such objectifying and categorical
discourses and policies.
In these policy
processes, then, we see an apparent binary between ‘families’ that are
regarded as successful and un-troubled, and ‘families’ that are
considered deviant and problematic. Yet this binary is partly created by the
idealization of the term ‘family’ itself, since it is those households that
fail to live up to what ‘family’ is meant to be which may experience shame,
stigma, and potentially punitive scrutiny (whether merited or not).
Furthermore, we find academic work itself helps to construct this binary, with
sociologists focusing upon ‘ordinary’ families and mainstream social change,
while ‘troublesome’ families are left to the attentions of social work and social
policy researchers. These two bodies of research rarely inter-relate, while the
researchers and academics involved attend different conferences and participate
in different debates and networks.
In this special section
of Sociological Research Online, we seek to move beyond
this binary through a two-dimensional focus on the notion of ‘troubling
families’, exploring both what may be ‘troubling’ about the notion of ‘family’, and how it
is that some particular families, and family practices (Morgan, 2011), may come
to be seen by some as ‘troubling’. On the one hand, then, some of the articles trouble the term
‘family’ and how the notion may itself shape people’s everyday experiences in
troublesome ways, even as they may resist such perspectives and seek to re-shape
them. The empirical underpinnings for these article include research with:
same-sex couple ‘families’ (Brian Heaphy in the UK, exploring ‘the ordinary’ as an ambiguousdiscourse for same-sex couples, and Luke Gahan in Australia, exploring the contradictoryimplications of idealising same-sex couple families with children); the
transnational ‘families’ of Lithuanian mothers living apart from their children, who both
engage with and re-shape public ‘scripts’ that cast migrant mothers as ‘troubling’ (Irena Juozeliūnienė and Irma Budginaitė); and the
‘families’ of ‘looked-after’ children living apart from their parents in
Scotland, where children and carers may ‘talk back’ to the categorization of
their families as ‘troubling’ (Vicki Welch). These examples,
in differing ways, all challenge any easy binary divisions.
The two concluding
articles address more particularly the grounds on which some ‘families’ and some
‘family practices’ may be seen to be particularly ‘troubling’, raising
significant sociological issues about the basis for such problematizing, and
the power dynamics involved. Michael Rush and Suleman Ibrahim Lazarus focus onthe difficult topic of parental physical chastisement of children, comparing
the histories and current framings of this apparently ‘troubling’ family practice
in the contexts of Ireland and Ghana, with evaluative shifts which they argue
to be linked to declining patriarchal power. And then Jane Ribbens McCarthy andVal Gillies tackle head on the question of who is troubled and why in regard to
what may or may not be defined as harmful to children in diverse cultural
settings. While the general framework of ‘family troubles’ can very usefully
serve to highlight continuities across diversities (Ribbens McCarthy et al,
2013), at the same time, where might any boundary lie between ‘normal’ troubles
in children’s families, and troubles that are troubling - potentially ‘harmful’
- in ways that might be seen to require intervention? Ribbens McCarthy and
Gillies argue the inevitability of living with uncertainty in the face of such
conundrums, since there are no universal ‘objective’ ‘a priori’ measures
for determining what is ‘harmful’ to children, whether through empirical
psychological research or through logical moral philosophising. But rather than
collapsing into some sort of cultural relativism in which ‘anything goes’, they
draw on the philosophical work of François Julienne (2008/2014), to explore the
possibilities and difficulties for developing an inter-cultural dialogue, that
can at least attempt to go beyond the neo-colonial imposition of Anglophone and
Western European assumptions. In this regard they briefly outline dimensions of
four particular frameworks and world views: the legal approach of children’s
Rights; the African tradition of Ubuntu; the Indian spirituality of Avaita; and
feminist theorising of a relational ethics of care.
By troubling the
concept of 'families', and asking how to interrogate the evaluative frameworks
and everyday assumptions that define some families, and some family practices,
as 'troubling', the special section thus raises challenging debates linking
substantive issues with theoretical and conceptual questions of diversity in
everyday relationships. Key sociological and social policy questions arise
concerning who it is who finds particular families troubling, what responses
are considered to be appropriate and by whom, and what are the historical
processes and power dynamics involved. And from family members’ own
perspectives, how does the view of their ‘family’ as ‘troubling’ impact upon
them, and do they find ways of resisting or accommodating such processes? In
these regards, the theoretical issues raised have the potential to develop
insights, across a diverse range of substantive topics, generating additional
perspectives. The questions raised in this process are themselves significantly
troubling, requiring considerable sensitivity and patience to explore the
complexities and ambivalences involved in seeking to engage with them. We are
grateful to the contributors to this special section for their participation,
and hope others will continue to engage and pursue these themes.
‘Troubling families’
may more faithfully and usefully illuminate contemporary family lives – whether
‘conventional’ or otherwise - in diverse contexts, and this may in turn help to
avoid creating further ‘troubles’ to family members themselves. Sociology has an important part to
play in this, by attending closely to the everyday meanings and practices
through which people experience their family lives together and make sense of
their relationships, in circumstances shaped by power dynamics, material
inequalities and colonial and cultural histories.
References:
Barrett M, and McIntosh M, 1982 The Anti-Social Family. London: Verso. 2nd ed. 2015
Carby, H.V. 1982 ‘White woman listen! Black feminism and the boundaries of sisterhood’, Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies, The Empire Strikes Back: Race and Racism in Seventies Britain, London:
Hutchinson. Re-printed in in H.A. Baker, M. Diawara and R.H. Lindeborg (eds) 1996 Black British Cultural Studies: A Reader, London: University of Chicago Press.
Crossley, S. 2016 ‘The Troubled Families programme: in, for and against the state?’ In M. Fenger, J. Hudson, and C. Needham, (eds) Social Policy Review 28. Policy Press. 127-146.
Edwards, R, Ribbens McCarthy, J. and Gillies, V. 2012 ‘The politics of concepts: family and its (putative) replacements.’ British Journal of Sociology, 63(4) pp. 730–746.
Evans, R, Bowlby S, Gottzen L and Ribbens McCarthy J 2018 ‘Family “troubles”, care and relationality in diverse contexts’, Children’s Geographies: Special issue (in progress).
Gabb, J and Silva, EB. 2011 ‘Introduction to critical concepts: families, intimacies and personal relationships’, Sociological Research Online. 16(4)23
Gilding, M. 2010 ‘Reflexivity over and above convention: the new orthodoxy in the sociology of personal life, formerly sociology of the family’, British Journal of Sociology 61(4): 757-777.
Gillies, V. 2014 ‘Troubling families: parenting and the politics of early intervention’, in S. Wagg and J. Pilcher (eds) Thatcher's Grandchildren?: Politics and Childhood in the Twenty-First Century. Basingstoke: Palgrave macmillan pp 204-224
Julienne, F 2008/2014 On the Universal, the uniform, the common and dialogue between cultures, Cambridge: Polity Press. (Translated by Michael Richardson and Krzysztof Fijalkowski.)
Morgan, D.H.J. 2011 Rethinking Family Practices. London: Palgrave macmillan.Ribbens McCarthy, J 2012 ‘The powerful language of ‘family’: togetherness, belonging and personhood.’ Sociological Review, 60(1) pp. 68–90.
Ribbens McCarthy, J. Doolittle, M. and Day Sclater, S. 2008 Family Meanings, Milton Keynes: Open University. Revised version published 2012, Understanding Family Meanings: a Reflective Text. Bristol: Policy Press.
Ribbens McCarthy J, Edwards R, and Gillies V. 2000 ‘Moral tales of the child and the adult: Narratives of contemporary family lives under changing circumstances’. Sociology, 34(4) 785-803
Ribbens McCarthy, J, Hooper CA, and Gillies, V (eds) 2013 Family Troubles? Exploring Changes and Challenges in the Family Lives of Children and Young People. Bristol: Policy Press
Ribbens McCarthy, J, Hooper CA, and Gillies V. (eds) ‘Family troubles and troubling families’, Journal of Family Issues, special issue (in progress)
Thorne, B and Yalom, M 1982 Rethinking the Family: Some Feminist Questions. London: Longman.
Carby, H.V. 1982 ‘White woman listen! Black feminism and the boundaries of sisterhood’, Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies, The Empire Strikes Back: Race and Racism in Seventies Britain, London:
Hutchinson. Re-printed in in H.A. Baker, M. Diawara and R.H. Lindeborg (eds) 1996 Black British Cultural Studies: A Reader, London: University of Chicago Press.
Crossley, S. 2016 ‘The Troubled Families programme: in, for and against the state?’ In M. Fenger, J. Hudson, and C. Needham, (eds) Social Policy Review 28. Policy Press. 127-146.
Edwards, R, Ribbens McCarthy, J. and Gillies, V. 2012 ‘The politics of concepts: family and its (putative) replacements.’ British Journal of Sociology, 63(4) pp. 730–746.
Evans, R, Bowlby S, Gottzen L and Ribbens McCarthy J 2018 ‘Family “troubles”, care and relationality in diverse contexts’, Children’s Geographies: Special issue (in progress).
Gabb, J and Silva, EB. 2011 ‘Introduction to critical concepts: families, intimacies and personal relationships’, Sociological Research Online. 16(4)23
Gilding, M. 2010 ‘Reflexivity over and above convention: the new orthodoxy in the sociology of personal life, formerly sociology of the family’, British Journal of Sociology 61(4): 757-777.
Gillies, V. 2014 ‘Troubling families: parenting and the politics of early intervention’, in S. Wagg and J. Pilcher (eds) Thatcher's Grandchildren?: Politics and Childhood in the Twenty-First Century. Basingstoke: Palgrave macmillan pp 204-224
Julienne, F 2008/2014 On the Universal, the uniform, the common and dialogue between cultures, Cambridge: Polity Press. (Translated by Michael Richardson and Krzysztof Fijalkowski.)
Morgan, D.H.J. 2011 Rethinking Family Practices. London: Palgrave macmillan.Ribbens McCarthy, J 2012 ‘The powerful language of ‘family’: togetherness, belonging and personhood.’ Sociological Review, 60(1) pp. 68–90.
Ribbens McCarthy, J. Doolittle, M. and Day Sclater, S. 2008 Family Meanings, Milton Keynes: Open University. Revised version published 2012, Understanding Family Meanings: a Reflective Text. Bristol: Policy Press.
Ribbens McCarthy J, Edwards R, and Gillies V. 2000 ‘Moral tales of the child and the adult: Narratives of contemporary family lives under changing circumstances’. Sociology, 34(4) 785-803
Ribbens McCarthy, J, Hooper CA, and Gillies, V (eds) 2013 Family Troubles? Exploring Changes and Challenges in the Family Lives of Children and Young People. Bristol: Policy Press
Ribbens McCarthy, J, Hooper CA, and Gillies V. (eds) ‘Family troubles and troubling families’, Journal of Family Issues, special issue (in progress)
Thorne, B and Yalom, M 1982 Rethinking the Family: Some Feminist Questions. London: Longman.