cava -- care, values and the future of welfare

In December 2002, the ESRC awarded CAVA additional money to develop four projects, which take two forms. Projects 1 and 2 developed new dimensions that had emerged out of CAVA's existing work. Project 3 aimed to collect new data by re-interviewing original CAVA respondents, and Project 4 sought to examine more extensively the negotiation of combining paid work with parenthood.

(Fiona Williams & Anna Gavanas)

In 2003, Gavanas and Williams had a preparatory grant from the ESRC and met three times in Leeds in order to prepare a submission for an EC-funded Marie Curie fellowship and produce a literature review for an upcoming study on migrant domestic workers. They co-wrote “Eine neue Variante des Herr-Knecht-Verhältnisses? Überlegungen zum Zusammenspiel von Geschlechterverhältnis, Familienarbeit und Migration” (‘New Masters / New Servants? The relations of gender, migration and the commodification of care’) to be published in S. Leitner, I.Osner and M.Schratzenstaller (eds.) Wohlfahrstaat und Geschlechterverhältnis im Umbruch. Was kommt nach dem Ernährermodell? Jahrbuch für Europa und Nordamerika-Studien 2003. Opladen, Leske & Budrich (in press). They presented this work at the ESA conference in Murcia, Spain. They were successful in their application for a Marie Curie Fellowship. This started in December 2003 . Along with Williams’ chapter ‘Trends in Women’s Employment, Domestic Service and Female Migration’ in T. Knijn and A. Komter (eds, 2004) Solidarity between the Sexes and Generations: Transformations in Europe, the significance of this work is that it brings a welfare regime analysis into research on migration, care and domestic service.

(Carol Smart & Shelley Budgeon)

The focus of this pilot study was to explore the issues individuals face when they marry across cultural and religious boundaries. In particular the focus was on how children are raised in mixed heritage households and how parents seek (or do not seek) to transmit their particular cultural and religious beliefs and practices. As a pilot study the aim was to interview 6 ‘couples’ who had partnered and parented across such differences as religion (e.g. Jewish and Catholic), ethnicity (Caribbean or Indian and White British), and culture (e.g. US American and English). From these interviews it was concluded that the ‘traditional’ focus of research on mixed marriage which has entailed a concentration on ‘race’ is not the most fruitful approach. The idea that there is a single difference is too simplistic and it also gives a problematic focus on ‘race’ as if this alone gives rise to problems or tensions. It was therefore decided that in planning a full scale project we would focus primarily on religious difference, although this may also map onto differences of nationality, ethnicity and other elements of cultural background. We interviewed some couples together and some separately. We came to the view that there were benefits in carrying out joint interviews in this study because it provoked a conversation between the couple which was useful. This also overcame the problem of anonymity because it was clearly difficult to hide the identity of spouses from each other in later written work. In conclusion, we decided that we would interview couples together unless they opted for separate interviews.

A preliminary paper was produced from this study and presented as a Plenary Address by Smart at ‘Living with Difference and Sameness: Culturally Diverse Families’, the ‘Family Relationships and Intimacy in a Globalising World’ International Conference, Rauma, Finland in September 2003.

(Sasha Roseneil & Jacqui Gabb)

This project involved the re-interviewing of respondents from the original Friendships and Non-Conventional Partnerships study. The main focus of activity for the first half of the year was on the conduct of this Friendship and Non-Conventional Partnership Revisited project. The aims of the re-interviews were:

To introduce a longitudinal element into the research design, to better explore processes of social change with which CAVA is centrally concerned;
To facilitate the in-depth narrative psycho-social approach to interviewing taken in the project.
To investigate practices and ethics of self-care, and the embeddedness, or not, of interviewees in spaces and networks of re-creation (leisure, play, sport, spirituality, politics, self-help, education).

25 of the 53 first-round interviewees were successfully re-interviewed between January and March 2003, between 18-24 months since the first interview. Most of those who were not re-interviewed could not be reached at the addresses on file, with a small number declining the request to be re-interviewed. The re-interviews were conducted by Sasha Roseneil, and lasted between an hour and half and two hours. They were transcribed in full, and coded on NVIVO. Initial analysis has identified four significant findings:

Embeddedness in Complex Networks of Intimacy and Care: Far from being the isolated, solitary individuals of much recent theorizing of individualization, the people in this study – none of whom lived with a partner - were enmeshed in complex networks of friends, partners, biological kin, and sometimes, ex-partners and their kin. The vast majority had strong connections and commitments to a range of others.

Prioritizing Friendship: Across a range of lifestyles, ages and sexualities, and across all of the localities, friendship occupied a central place in the personal lives of the interviewees. There was a high degree of reliance on friends, as opposed to biological kin and sexual partners, particularly for the provision of care and support in everyday life.

De-centring Sexual/Love Relationships: There was a strong tendency amongst the interviewees to emphasize the emotional and practical significance of friends over lovers/sexual partners and to be self-consciously seeking to organize their lives so that sexual relationships were not the sole source of support, care and intimacy. A considerable number of interviewees were experimenting with non-conventional forms of partnership, in which they had no intention of co-habiting.

The Importance of Psychological Well-Being: Many of the interviewees had experienced the break-down of a long-term relationship, which resulted in considerable psychological distress, and there were a significant minority who were experiencing long-term psychological ill-health. It was friends far more often than family members who offered support through periods of psychological distress. Consistent attention to practices of care of the self were also particularly important to this group.

Papers were given by Sasha Roseneil at the following conferences and seminars: CAVA initial findings seminar; the 5th European Feminist Research Conference at the University of Lund; the Social Policy Association Conference; the Australian Sociological Association Conference, University College Dublin, the University of Aberdeen, University of Adelaide and RMIT. Papers were given by Shelley Budgeon at the Communities Conference, Trinity and All Saints College, and at the British Sociological Association Conference.

A special issue of the journal Current Sociology, edited by Shelley Budgeon and Sasha Roseneil, entitled “Beyond the Conventional Family: Intimacy, Care and Community in the 21st Century” published papers given at the CAVA Friendship and Non-Conventional Partnership International Seminar in 2002, along with a number of additional commissioned articles, and an article by Roseneil and Budgeon.

(Sarah Irwin)

This project was the outcome of additional ESRC funding secured by CAVA in December 2002. The fieldwork phase of the project was completed by February/March 2003, with a survey of 102 parents in different locales in the Leeds. Interviews were conducted by HI Europe Research Consultancy. The project focus is on values, care and commitments amongst parents of young primary school children. It develops a more nuanced approach to researching the subjective aspects of social experience than is usual in a survey approach, paying particular attention to context. The research builds a picture of values using context specific but also quantifiable data. It allows exploration of patterns across different cultural contexts, and a new analysis of care, commitments and the 'shape' of values. If time permits it is hoped to conduct some qualitative in-depth interviews with members of the original sample.

A paper from this project - ‘The Changing Shape of Values, Care and Commitment’ - was presented at the ESPAnet conference, at the Danish National Institute of Social Research, Copenhagen, in November 2003. Findings from this project have also been developed in a number of forthcoming journal publications.