"Instead of seeing the family as a "monolithic" entity, as though separate from its surroundings, this new approach draws attention to assemblages of various types that in different constellations and through different transactions relate people to each other as families and kin"--

The other report is published by the U. S. State Department and is more "committed," but only as far as the national interest of the world's only su perpower is concerned. Therefore, the State Department report must be read while keeping in mind the state of U. S. relations with the countries concerned. This report is accompanied by the so-called "certification" process, whose ar bitrary character has often been stressed. For instance, Iran, a country whose determination to fight the drug transit on its territory is well-known - more than 100 Iranian law enforcement agents die every year as a restult - was removed from the "blacklist" of "decertified countries" in the spring of 1999, precisely as it was inaugurating a policy of opening itself to external influ ence, including that of the United States. In retrospect, this demonstrates that the U. S. government had decertified Iran in past years because it was viewed as an Islamic and terrorist country, not because of its supposed involvement in drug trafficking. Neither does the last State Department report explain why Haji Ayub Afridi, a major Pakistani drug baron, who had voluntarily surrendered to U. S. authorities, returned to Pakistan in 1999 after spending a mere three and a half years in a U. S. prison."

Westerners believe that love makes life worth living; that sex is a natural desire different in kind from love; and that only cynics reduce our love life to a calculation of economic or genetic factors. In this volume, essays explore these and other assumptions about the relationship between romantic love and sex. This represents the first interdisciplinary social science study of love and sex. Contributors ask and answer questions such as: Is love just sex idealized, or is it a transcendent and divine emotion? Is love a cultural construct that is shared by members of the same culture, or is it a matter of personal taste? What keeps promiscuous people from using condoms even when they know they are at risk? Are black professional men so "rare" that their conceptions of love and sex differ from those of white professional men? Are brutal sexual fantasies an exclusively male domain, and are they always excluded from love fantasies among "normal" adolescents? Is divorce a culturally induced response to evolutionary reproductive strategies that compel individuals to maximize their genetic legacy? Are marriages or relationships less satisfying or stable when an actual mate falls short of the fantasy of the ideal mate? Is there a universal core to love and sex that is camouflaged by other cultural norms such as modesty and sexual segregation? Is rape perceived as more "acceptable" when the rapist says he was motivated by "love"? What do cult movements and romantic love have in common? As they attempt to answer these and other questions, the authors extend our understanding of the variety of ways that love and sex are conceptualized, connected, or separated.

It is a well known fact that our population of persons aged 65 and over are growing at a faster rate than any other demographic. Older adults are now living longer more complex lives than previous generations. Recent census data confirms the emergence of a growing, more visible older Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgendered (GLBT) community. In spite of the diversity that now exists in older GLBT communities, very little is known about their contemporary experiences and healthcare needs. What is needed is a more inclusive understanding of older GLBT family and community life. As a result, this book will educate community professionals about the experiences of older GLBT adults and the issues they face within their families and communities. In particular, physical and mental health, family relationships, and individual development are explored in this textbook. This multidisciplinary approach to GLBT aging will also benefit undergraduate students, graduate students, and academics specializing in anthropology, education, family studies, gerontology, health studies, human development, psychology, social work, and sociology. For that matter, anyone currently researching or working with older sexual communities. This book was published as a special issue of the Journal of GLBT Family Studies.

Originally published in 1924, Professor Hobhouse's theories and commentaries upon social development are an important milestone in the history of sociological thought. Of particular interest to the modern sociologist is his delineation of the struggle of the human mind towards rationality in thought and action and his insistence on the principle that in all social investigations it is necessary to distinguish between questions of fact and questions of value.

Over a couple of generations new possibilities have opened up for how we organize our relationships. This is especially true of same sex relationships where there is an increasing acceptance of civil unions and same-sex marriages. Many young same sex couples and partners are now living more ordinary lives than ever thought possible before, and marriage can be an important part of this. Based on extensive couple and individual interviews with young partners who have legally formalized their relationships, this fascinating new book argues that same sex marriages in everyday life need to be understood in terms of interlinked developments in lesbian and gay worlds, heterosexual relationships and in personal life. The book sheds light on the generational and biographical factors that influence same sex relationships and discusses the implications for how we understand changing heterosexual relationships and marriages. This topical book will provide compelling reading for all those interested in sexuality, gender, the family and personal life.

In this book, an array of approaches - first person and theoretical accounts, clinical understandings, qualitative and quantitative research - are brought to bear on controversial or under-discussed topics in lesbian family life. From conception all the way to care for elderly parents, this book takes a fresh look at lesbian family relationships. Topics include: butch/femme couples, infidelity, the psychological meaning of family for lesbians, age-discrepant couples, lesbian nuns as family, Listservs as family, intentional family for aging women, women raising sons, mothers who come out late in life, mothers and children in situations of domestic violence, lack of support for lesbian domestic violence survivors, death of a partner, psychological issues in the use of sperm donors or surrogates, and middle-aged lesbians caring for homophobic elderly parents. Some authors use self psychology and Jungian psychology to describe aspects of family life. The richness and diversity of topics makes it a text on "lesbian lives". Therapists and academics from throughout the U.S. have contributed to this collection. Many lesbian women, as well as teachers (it can be a text) and mental health professionals who work with children, families, couples and elderly will find useful material here. This book was published as a special issue of the Journal of Lesbian Studies.

Each family has its secrets, ones that shape family communication and relationships in a way generally unknown to the outsider and often the family itself. Autoethnographers, students of these relationships, confront many silences in their attempts to understand these social worlds. It is often the accidental slip, the spontaneous discussion, the offhanded comment that opens this terrain of secrets to the conscientious storyteller. Accidental Ethnography delves into this shadowy world of pain and loss in the hopes of finding productive, ethical avenues for transforming the secret lives of families into powerful narratives of hope. It merges autoethnographic method with the therapeutic power of storytelling to heal family wounds. Poulos's lyrical text will appeal to those in ethnography, interpersonal communication, and family relationships alike.

Fathering is a highly contested concept in popular, media, academic and policy discourses, yet in the areas of family studies and men 's studies the leisure component of family life is under-played. This book provides a long overdue and thorough investigation of the relationship between fatherhood, sport, and leisure.

Fathering Through Sport and Leisure investigates what fathers actually do in the time they spend with their children. Leading researchers from the fields of sport, leisure and family studies examine the tensions men encounter as they endeavour to meet the new expectations of fatherhood, and the central role that sport and leisure play in overcoming this. Analyzed in relation to social trends and current policy debates, this unique collection examines fathering in a wide range of contexts including:

• parental expectation and youth sports
• fathers and daughters
• leisure time and couple time in dual earner families
• divorce, fatherhood and leisure.

The book shows how contemporary fathers use sport and leisure to engage with their sons and daughters, achieve emotional closeness and fulfil their own expectations of what it means to be a good father . Drawing on research carried out in the UK, Australia, Canada and the United States, this is a crucial text for anybody with an interest in leisure studies, family studies or fatherhood.

Most fathers parent less than most mothers. Those fathers who do parent equally or more so than mothers are poorly supported by our society. For children this means a loss of adult care, as well as an ongoing and sharply defined differentiation between fathers and mothers. Fathers are not present in children's lives to a significant degree, if at all, or when they are present, they are often rendered socially invisible. For many men, their parenthood is defined as biological or economic, while a minority of men struggle against the presumption that they are not caregivers.

In Redefining Fatherhood, Nancy Dowd argues that this skewed social pattern is mirrored and supported by law. Dowd makes the case for reenvisioning fatherhood away from genes and dollars, and toward nurture. Integrating economic, social and legal aspects of fathering, she makes the case for focusing on social, nurturing behavior as the core meaning of fatherhood. In this nuanced and complex analysis, she explores the barriers to redefinition, including concepts of masculinity, the interconnections between fathers and mothers, male violence and homophobia.

Redefining Fatherhood offers a progressive view on how men, and society at large, can change understandings and practices of fatherhood.

This book brings together ten original empirical works focusing on the influence of various types of spatial mobility - be it international or national- on partnership, family and work life. The contributions cover a range of important topics which focus on understanding how spatial mobility is related to familial relationships and life course transitions. The volume offers new insights by bringing together the state of the art in theoretical and empirical approaches from spatial mobility and international migration research. This includes, for example, studies that investigate the relationships between international migration and changing patterns of partnership choice, family formation and fertility. Complementing to this, this volume presents new empirical studies on job-related residential mobility and its impact on the relationship quality of couples, family life, and union dissolution. It also highlights the importance of research that looks at the reciprocal relationships between mobility and life course events such as young adults leaving the parental home in international migration context, re-arrangements of family life after divorce and spatial mobility of the elderly following life transitions. The scholarly work included in this volume does not only contribute to theoretical debates but also provide timely empirical evidence from various societies which represent the common features in the dynamics of spatial mobility and migration.

As the structure of the family changes with the proliferation of single parent families, working mothers, infant and day care, and societal complexities and stresses, early therapy for the mother-child dyad becomes critical. Gochman's program, begun under the auspices of the National Institute of Mental Health, has made an impact on the Washington, D.C. area and has ignited a carryover into development training and research in primary prevention programs. This is the first time that mother-infant psychotherapy has been presented outside the professional journal literature. Through case studies, observations, and procedural explanations, Gochman lays out her practice in clear and urgent detail.

"Psychosis in the Family" is a book written not just by a professional transpersonal psychotherapist but by someone who has walked the heartrending path and experienced the psychological trauma of loving someone in psychosis; psychosis which still remains the greatest taboo in society today, together with its implicit diagnosis of a lifelong sentence of medication and no cure. The 21st century has seen a significant shift among us to take more responsibility for our illnesses through being able to access unlimited information on diagnoses and treatments through the Internet. To date, severe mental illness has been a particularly closed book, with only psychiatrists and mental health professionals professing to know its secrets and mysteries. In particular, psychosis has been a subject which for centuries has lain behind the locked doors of the experts just as the severely mentally ill have been hidden away from the public eye in locked wards. This book is in the main a personal and moving narrative of a mother looking to help her son avoid a lifelong sentence of medication while trying to research holistic resources and alternative approaches for treatment while negotiating the vagaries of the mental health system. It is often a tale of despair and frustration, yet also gives a compassionate voice. Transpersonal and transgenerational psychotherapeutic insights back up the personal narrative. It includes an accessible inquiry into how unconscious forces influence our mind, our bodies and the entire family system. Its hypothesis is that if we cannot understand our own unconscious responses how can we understand those of our loved ones in psychotic episodes? This is a highly readable, provocative weave of story and theory, one of the great untold stories of our time."

Each family has its secrets, ones that shape family communication and relationships in a way generally unknown to the outsider and often the family itself. Autoethnographers, students of these relationships, confront many silences in their attempts to understand these social worlds. It is often the accidental slip, the spontaneous discussion, the offhanded comment that opens this terrain of secrets to the conscientious storyteller. Accidental Ethnography delves into this shadowy world of pain and loss in the hopes of finding productive, ethical avenues for transforming the secret lives of families into powerful narratives of hope. It merges autoethnographic method with the therapeutic power of storytelling to heal family wounds. Poulos's lyrical text will appeal to those in ethnography, interpersonal communication, and family relationships alike.

Surveying current research findings, social trends, and public controversies, Work and Family in America examines the changing cultures of the workplace, family, and home. Once viewed as a "women and day care" problem, work-family now encompasses a vast and complex set of issues. Eldercare. Fatherhood. Telecommuting. Pay equity. Employee productivity and retention. Feminism. Child care and childcare development. Youth violence. Welfare. Nontraditional families and family values. This extensive overview of this burgeoning field includes everything from a detailed history and statistics comparing trends in the United States and abroad to key legislation and legal cases. It gives biographical sketches of well-known activists like Betty Friedan, Arle Hothschild, and Rosabeth Moss Kanter. Lesser-known advocates like James A. Levine, director of the Fatherhood Project at the Family and Work Institute and MIT professor Lotte Bailyn, who believes work should be organized around tasks, not time, are also included. Covers the initial research on work-family from the 1970s and 1980s to the recent research showing that men are experiencing significant amounts of work-family stress as they become more involved with family life while the culture of the workplace remains largely unresponsive Includes an overview of legislation and cases that have impacted the field with particular emphasis on employment laws affecting women-a key component of the study of work-family

In our society, the argument for or against same-sex marriage becomes even more heated when the debate turns to bisexual women and men. Bisexuality and Same-Sex Marriage thoughtfully explores this debate from a wide range of interdisciplinary perspectives, presenting respected scholars from fields as diverse as American Studies, Communication, Criminology, Human and Organizational Systems, Law and Social Policy, LGBT Studies, Organizational Behavior, Psychology, Sociology, Women's Studies, and Queer Studies. This clear-viewed volume is organized into three perspectives?theoretical, research, and personal?that frame the debate from a macro to micro level of analysis.
This book goes beyond the intense acrimony and divisiveness to rationally examine the issue from various viewpoints and through the latest research. This informative text presents and analyzes in depth the current findings and the diverse LGBT and straight perspectives on the issue. This insightful resource discusses in detail personal views, the latest theories, and is extensively referenced.

Bisexuality and Same-Sex Marriage is an essential volume for LGBT studies professionals, psychologists, counselors, educators, students, and interested general public.

This book was published as a special issue of the Journal of Bisexuality.

Maligned as "deadbeat dadsor sexually and financially irresponsible, inner-city fathers and overlooked in discussions of poverty and family policy, economically vulnerable nonresident fathers are a greatly misunderstood population. Failing our Fathers summarizes the most recent rigorous and ethnographic research and fills in important gaps with new analyses. The result is a comprehensive picture of who these fathers are, what types of relationships they have with their families and children, and the challenges they face meeting what they, taxpayers and their children and families expect from them. The book argues that in the aftermath of the 2007-2009 Great Mancession, nearly 6 million - almost one of every eleven - men will be unable to provide financial and other kinds of support for their children who live elsewhere. This population is far larger than the inner city, unmarried, Black and Latino men who have been the focus of the debate on disadvantaged fathers. Because so few could reduce the child support obligations that built up during the mass unemployment and incarceration over the previous two decades, they have long-term debts, which they may never be able to pay. Nevertheless, they play active roles as friends, mentors, educators, and disciplinarians for their children and they want to do more. However, they face several challenges, including: time and distance, new family obligations, contentious relationships with children's mothers - who just as often have new partners and children of their own - and personal problems with drugs, alcohol and past or present jail time. Besides requiring these fathers to support their children, we must enable them to do so in ways that parallel how we require and enable vulnerable single mothers to do the same. The book lays out specific reforms required to do this and practical tips for those who are Fathering without Means.

The purpose of this book is to serve as a guide to understanding the Latino family in the United States and to describe the personal, political, historical, and sacred choices available in creating a freer and more fruitful family life. By linking theory to practice, the book provides a reenvisioning of the Latino family. Before any family can look at itself in a new way, it has to have a theoretical perspective. The book's theory of transformation provides a perspective that allows us to understand Latino families and the family in general. Furthermore, the politics of transformation shows us how to create fundamentally new and better relationships within the family.

In the popular imagination, the twenty years after World War II are associated with simpler, happier, more family-focused living. We think of stereotypical baby boom families like the Cleavers--white, suburban, and well on their way to middle-class affluence. For these couples and their children, a happy, stable family life provided an antidote to the anxieties and uncertainties of the emerging nuclear age.

But not everyone looked or lived like the Cleavers. For those who could not have children, or have as many children as they wanted, the postwar baby boom proved a source of social stigma and personal pain. Further, in 1950 roughly one in three Americans made below middle-class incomes, and over fifteen million lived under Jim Crow segregation. For these individuals, home life was not an oasis but a challenge, intimately connected to the era's many political and social upheavals.

"Everybody Else" provides a comparative analysis of diverse postwar families and examines the lives and case records of men and women who applied to adopt or provide pre-adoptive foster care in the 1940s and 1950s. It considers an array of individuals--both black and white, middle and working class--who found themselves on the margins of a social world that privileged family membership. These couples wanted adoptive and foster children in order to achieve a sense of personal mission and meaning, as well as a deeper feeling of belonging to their communities. But their quest for parenthood also highlighted the many inequities of that era. These individuals' experiences seeking children reveal that the baby boom family was about much more than "togetherness" or a quiet house in the suburbs; it also shaped people's ideas about the promises and perils of getting ahead in postwar America.

Imagine standing in a child's room at your mid-point of life, staring into a mirror of truth and realizing that the child you last saw through that looking glass now has thinning hair, bulging love handles, and an aching back. You may be halfway through life, but are you half-through living?
Robin T.W. Yuan attacks mid-life and its fears with vigor, humor, and truth in a book of insightful and entertaining vignettes about foggy memory, failing vision, fading dreams, and an aging physique. Sometimes sweet, sometimes poignant, occasionally biting, but always truthful, Cheer Up . . . You're Only Half Dead is written with the eyes of a child, the mind of a philosopher, the artistry of a plastic surgeon, the grace of an accomplished violinist, and the insight of an enlightened middle-ager. Readers young, old, and in-between will nod with understanding and laugh with familiarity, while being encouraged to squeeze all they can out of life.

This work is an attempt to begin the process of closing the theoretical gap in our knowledge about ourselves, challenging the current thought on human development and behavior. A psychosocial/biological approach is used to explore the influence of instinct on human nature. Models to assess behavior and to develop individual and socially therapeutic interventions are proposed.

Romantic relationships and health are fundamental for society, but what happens to a person's well-being when he or she chooses the "wrong" partner? Interracial Romance and Health: Bridging Generations, Race Relations, and Well-Being tackles this growing public health issue, which impacts millions of people in interracial relationships, especially young adults. With a particular focus on a group of young adults whom he calls the Bridge Kids, Byron Miller provides a critical examination of how racial identity, socialization, and the partner selection process influence whether a person becomes interracially involved. For those that do cross racial lines for romance, Miller reveals that the race of one's partner can have a significant impact on their lived experiences and health outcomes. Opposing the idea that interracial relationships are bad for society and an individual's health, Miller argues that interracial romance has health benefits for some, is generally good for society, and that what is truly detrimental is the unnecessary stress people in interracial relationships feel due to their experiences with stigma, racism, and discrimination. Miller concludes that as the prevalence of interracial romance grows, so does the urgency to address these issues to protect the well-being of the Bridge Kids and others in interracial romantic partnerships.

We inhabit a world of more than humans. For life to flourish, we must listen to the calls this world makes on us, and respond with care, sensitivity and judgement. That is what it means to correspond, to join our lives with those of the beings, matters and elements with whom, and with which, we dwell upon the earth. In this book, anthropologist Tim Ingold corresponds with landscapes and forests, oceans and skies, monuments and artworks. To each he brings the same spontaneity of thought and observation, the same intimacy and lightness of touch, but also the same affection, longing and care that, in the days when we used to write letters by hand, we would bring to our correspondences with one another. The result is a profound yet accessible inquiry into ways of attending to the world around us, into the relation between art and life, and into the craft of writing itself. At a time of environmental crisis, when words so often seem to fail us, Ingold points to how the practice of correspondence can help restore our kinship with a stricken earth.

In November 1998, the Hawaii and Alaska electorates voted to amend their state constitutions so that same-sex marriages would not have to be recognized. Rather than end the controversy surrounding same-sex marriages, the passage of these amendments will only spur more litigation, because the referenda themselves implicate constitutional guarantees and because amending a state constitution cannot lessen federal constitutional protections. Since same-sex marriages promote many of the same individual and state interests that opposite-sex marriages do, states will be unable to justify their same-sex marriage bans if those rationales are closely examined. When challenged, the recent constitutional amendments in Hawaii and Alaska may well be held unconstitutional by the state supreme courts on federal constitutional grounds, although ultimately the United States Supreme Court will likely be asked to resolve the relevant issues.

Suppose that state same-sex marriage bans are held not to violate federal constitutional guarantees, but that one state nonetheless recognizes such unions. The other states will be permitted to refuse to recognize marriages celebrated in that state only if certain conditions have been met. Contrary view notwithstanding, the law of nature exception will not apply in this case. Further, even the Defense of Marriage Act will likely not afford states the right to refuse to recognize any and all same-sex marriages validly celebrated in sister states.

Classical political economy rests on the assumption that the market and the family are overlapping and mutually dependent realms, dominated in turn by economic men and domestic women. Brian Cooper explores the role of economic theory in 'normalizing' the family in the first half of the nineteenth century. Drawing on a wide range of sources - novels, books on etiquette and statistical sources, as well as works of economics - the book examines the impacts of these different forms on contemporary debate.

eBook available with sample pages: 0203441850