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Families in Motion

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This book is premised on the conceptualisation of family as always in motion, which in turn is determined by the interdependent mobilities of families and family members. Contributions from academi...
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  • 25 October 2019
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This interdisciplinary edited collection will challenge the idea of the static family that can be 'broken', and instead think of family as always 'on the move', both conceptually and in practice. This dual approach to family is the unique contribution of the book, which offers new perspectives on the sociology and geography of the family, drawn together by the shared lens of family mobilities. As such it brings together insights from the diverse work of interdisciplinary academics working alone and collaboratively on different aspects of family lives and relationships.

The central argument of the book is that the concept of family is always in motion: a disruption in one aspect of family relations, for example, the ending of the intimate relationship between parents, is part of the ongoing project of family. In addition, families are made through mobility and immobility in relation to people, communications, objects and ideas. Contributions from a range of academics across disciplines consider changes in family practices and the ways in which they are produced through motion. 

This book seeks to understand families as always in motion; changing, adapting and re-routed. Integral to this discussion is the spatiality and temporality of family, that families are produced in different times and spaces. Families are also made through interactions with material things, including non-human living things and through the emotional ties and responses that determine their form and practices.
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Price: $111.99
Pages: 288
Publisher: Emerald Publishing Limited
Imprint: Emerald Publishing Limited
Publication Date: 25 October 2019
ISBN: 9781787694163
Format: Hardcover
BISACs: FAMILY & RELATIONSHIPS / General, Sociology: family & relationships, FAMILY & RELATIONSHIPS / Alternative Family, FAMILY & RELATIONSHIPS / Life Stages / General
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Challenging the idea of a stable family, this volume brings together 14 chapters by social work, sociology, law, and other scholars from Europe, Australia, and the US, to explore the concept of the family as always in motion and the idea that movement and change are part of the ongoing constitution of family, focusing on the spatial and time aspects of family. They discuss how people move in and out of different contexts of family, become separated, and reconnect, in terms of fatherhood in family separations, prison, living together when an intimate relationship ends, and the way children of separated parents construct their home in the context of equal shared custody agreements; uneven motion and resistance in families, in terms of the role of information and communication technology in sustaining the mobility of transnational families, how family transitions offer opportunities for role redefinitions, strategies of resistance used by expectant mothers in response to the threat to their future relationship with unborn children, and everyday family practices like leisure activities; and aspects of family separations and how families are made, including absent fathers, children moving between two homes, what happens when families walk together, young people who have experienced foster care becoming parents, and the migration of Italian women in Morocco.
Lesley Murray is an Associate Professor in Sociology, University of Brighton, UK. 
Liz McDonnell is a Research Fellow and teaches on the MA in Gender studies at Sussex University, UK. 
Tamsin Hinton-Smith is a Sociologist of Gender and Education, and a Senior Lecturer at the University of Sussex, UK.
Nuno Ferreira is a Professor of Law at the University of Sussex, UK. 
Katie Walsh is Senior Lecturer in Human Geography at the University of Sussex, UK.
1. Introduction; Lesley Murray, Liz McDonnell, Katie Walsh, Nuno Ferreira, and Tamsin Hinton-Smith 
Section 1: Moving Through Separation and Connection 
2. Travelling Feelings: Narratives of Sustaining Love in Two Comparative Cultural Case Studies of Fathering During Family Separations; Alexandra Macht 
3. 'Clinging on': Prison and the Changing Landscape of the Family; Marie Hutton  
4. 'Living Together Apart' as Families in Transition; Liz Mcdonnell, Lesley Murray, Tamsin Hinton-Smith and Nuno Ferreira 
5. 'The Sense of Space' of Children Living in Stepfamilies in Belgium; Laura Merla and Bérengère Nobels
Section 2: Uneven Motions and Resistance 
6. The Roles of ICTs in Sustaining the Mobilities of Transnational Families; Sondra Cuban 
7. Life Course Transitions as Liminal Zones; Bella Marckmann 
8. Jumping Through Hoops: Families' Experiences of Pre-Birth Child Protection; Ariane Critchley  
9. Families and Flow: The Temporalities of Everyday Family Practices; Clare Holdsworth 
Section 3: Traces and Potentialities 
10. Losing A Father in a Demolished Ex-Industrial Landscape: A Researcher's Emotional Geography; Lisa Taylor 
11. Children in Motion: Doing Family Across Two Households; Rakel Berman 
12. Families on-Foot: Assembling Motherhood and Childhood Through Care and Play; Susannah Clement 
13. Reconciling Past Family Disruption and Transitional Flux into the Present: Foster Care-Experienced Youths' Parenting Narratives; Caroline Cresswell 
14. Moving to be a Family: The Case of Italian Women in Morocco; Maria Giovanna Cassa