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Friendships
and Non-Conventional Partnerships
Sasha Roseneil
s.roseneil@leeds.ac.uk
This
project focuses on the experiences of care, intimacy and sociability
of a sector of the population which has rarely been the explicit
subject of social scientific research: adults who are not
living with a partner. The theoretical drivers of the research
are the sociological literatures on contemporary social transformation,
specifically theories of individualisation, detraditionalisation
and reflexive modernisation, and the work of Sasha Roseneil
on the post-modernisation of the sexual order.
The
project has employed a narrative interview methodology, influenced
by Hollway and Jefferson’s work on the ‘free association
narrative interview’, and grounded in a conceptualisation
of interviewees as non-unitary, emotional, psycho-social subjects.
53 Interviews were carried out in three of the CAVA localities
- Leeds, Barnsley and Hebden Bridge - which were chosen to
offer contrasting contexts in terms of patterns of gender
relations, household composition, relationship status and
sexual cultures. Second interviews were carried out with 25
of the original 53 in 2003 as part of the Friendship and Non-Conventional
Partnership Revisited project, funded by the ESRC.
SOME
KEY 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.
Recent
publications from the Friendships and Non-Conventional Partnerships
project:
- Roseneil,
S. (forthcoming, 2004), ‘Why We Should Care about
Friends: An Argument for Queering the Care Imaginary in
Social Policy’, Social Policy and Society,
Volume 3, Number 4, October.
- Roseneil,
S. (2004) Towards a More Friendly Society: Work, Care and
Play in the 21st Century. Paper presented to the Centre
for Policy Studies in Education, University of Leeds,
3 June.
- Roseneil,
S. and Budgeon, S. (2004) ‘Cultures of Intimacy and
Care Beyond the Family: Personal Life and Social Change
in the Early Twenty-First Century’, Current Sociology,
52(2).
- Roseneil,
S. (2003), ‘We’d Rather Be with Friends’,
New Statesman, 15 December.
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