Ordinary Relationships
Journal Data
| Type | SOURCE_BOOK |
|---|---|
| Publisher | Palgrave Macmillan Limited |
| ISBN-13 | 9781137318763 |
| Open Library | OL20692426W |
| Total publications | 11 |
| Coverage period | 2014 - 2014 |
| Language | EN |
| Cited by | 16 |
| h-index | 1 |
| i10-index | 1 |
Recent theorizing tends to position ordinary relationships as something we have lost, yet the nature of these relationships is not seriously engaged with. Drawing on rich empirical data, this book que
The Practice of Being There
This final part of the book considers emerging, or so far neglected, stories that might help us make sense of our emotional lives: stories about being, doing, reflexivity, privacy and vulnerability. This chapter begins by looking at what relationships that ‘matter’ look and feel like and teasing out what we mean when we say others are ‘there’ for us. To draw on Goffman’s (1974) question, I am interested in what it is that is going on1 when we are…
On Not Telling Our Sad Stories
At the heart of the epochal stories about our emotional lives in Anglo-American societies outlined in Part I is the claim that we increasingly perceive ourselves to be vulnerable. Despite a dearth of empirical evidence (Misztal, 2011, p.35), such claims, which include theorizing about how individualization and globalization create vulnerable selves, are a dominant strand in sociological narratives about emotional lives (Beck and Beck Gernsheim, 2…
Look Who’s Listening
In Part I of the book, I explored the cultural significance of disclosure, captured in Les Back’s (2007, p.7) claim that ours is a culture in which ‘there is a clamour to be heard, to narrate and gain attention’. Within the social sciences, though, the focus has been on talk without, curiously, much interest in who is doing the listening . Most of the discussion in the last chapter focused on our general orientations towards emotions talk, that i…
Living in the Second World
The unsaid has been a recurrent theme throughout this book: in the conceptual discussions about practical consciousness; the methodological challenges of the unspoken; the variations in the propensity to engage in emotions talk; the contingency of who is actually there to listen or coax us to talk; and the unspoken dimensions of reflexivity examined in the last chapter. In this chapter, I continue that exploration by looking at why and how we kee…
‘It’s Good to Talk’ and Other Stories
Part I of the book looked at epochal claims that have been made about our emotional lives and explored what a more nuanced understanding of these lives might look like. Specifically, it called for a closer conceptual and methodological engagement with notions of culture, reflexivity and emotions. Part II continues this process by gauging empirically the nature of our emotional relationships in the context of emotional support and the role of talk…
About Distances
Arthur Miller, near the end of his life, wrote that he felt more drawn to writing stories than plays. Reading stories as a boy, he wanted to skip to the dialogue, to where, as he saw it, the author stopped getting in the way and the action began. As he got older, he became more interested in the things which ‘register and weigh’ (Miller, 2010, p.viii) — place, objects, memories, the mood of the moment, dimensions he felt he could best capture thr…
Introduction
The book’s title comes from Raymond Williams’ (1979) observation that ‘many people are brought through quite profound disorders by the actual development of ordinary relationships’ (1979, p.184). For Williams, ‘the principle that you can only be brought through emotional crisis by a professional’ is an ‘extraordinary characteristic notion of bourgeois-bureaucratic society’. The potential of ‘ordinary relationships’ is much debated in the current …
Seizing the Spinning Top
Despite theoretical interest in reflexivity, empirical research in this area is still rare (Phillips and Western, 2005). This is, likely, in part, to be a result of the methodological difficulty involved: akin to seizing a spinning top to understand how it works (James, 1890, p.244, cited Archer, 2010, p.5). Yet we do need to find out more about reflexivity, about how we make our way in the world and, specifically, the role of emotions in this. T…
What We Talk about When We Talk about Emotion Culture
In this chapter I start by sketching some existing work on emotion culture, with therapeutic culture presented as a specific case. In doing so, I make two main arguments. The first is that despite bringing together the words ‘emotion’ and ‘culture’, sociological accounts of emotion culture are often curiously underengaged with the actual nature of culture and emotions or with the role of reflexivity. The second is that the claims made about such …
Conclusion
Writing about ordinary relationships is not a discrete endeavour; the interconnected nature of our lives means that, in writing about such relationships, one teeters much of the time on the verge of writing a sociology of everything. Some readers might feel that this balancing act has not been successful. Others might be questioning the focus on everyday emotional lives at this time and asking whether sociology has not got better things to do in …
Ordinary Relationships
Recent theorizing tends to position ordinary relationships as something we have lost, yet the nature of these relationships is not seriously engaged with. Drawing on rich empirical data, this book que
Ordinary Relationships
Recent theorizing tends to position ordinary relationships as something we have lost, yet the nature of these relationships is not seriously engaged with. Drawing on rich empirical data, this book que
The Practice of Being There
This final part of the book considers emerging, or so far neglected, stories that might help us make sense of our emotional lives: stories about being, doing, reflexivity, privacy and vulnerability. This chapter begins by looking at what relationships that ‘matter’ look and feel like and teasing out what we mean when we say others are ‘there’ for us. To draw on Goffman’s (1974) question, I am interested in what it is that is going on1 when we are…
On Not Telling Our Sad Stories
At the heart of the epochal stories about our emotional lives in Anglo-American societies outlined in Part I is the claim that we increasingly perceive ourselves to be vulnerable. Despite a dearth of empirical evidence (Misztal, 2011, p.35), such claims, which include theorizing about how individualization and globalization create vulnerable selves, are a dominant strand in sociological narratives about emotional lives (Beck and Beck Gernsheim, 2…
Look Who’s Listening
In Part I of the book, I explored the cultural significance of disclosure, captured in Les Back’s (2007, p.7) claim that ours is a culture in which ‘there is a clamour to be heard, to narrate and gain attention’. Within the social sciences, though, the focus has been on talk without, curiously, much interest in who is doing the listening . Most of the discussion in the last chapter focused on our general orientations towards emotions talk, that i…
Living in the Second World
The unsaid has been a recurrent theme throughout this book: in the conceptual discussions about practical consciousness; the methodological challenges of the unspoken; the variations in the propensity to engage in emotions talk; the contingency of who is actually there to listen or coax us to talk; and the unspoken dimensions of reflexivity examined in the last chapter. In this chapter, I continue that exploration by looking at why and how we kee…
‘It’s Good to Talk’ and Other Stories
Part I of the book looked at epochal claims that have been made about our emotional lives and explored what a more nuanced understanding of these lives might look like. Specifically, it called for a closer conceptual and methodological engagement with notions of culture, reflexivity and emotions. Part II continues this process by gauging empirically the nature of our emotional relationships in the context of emotional support and the role of talk…
About Distances
Arthur Miller, near the end of his life, wrote that he felt more drawn to writing stories than plays. Reading stories as a boy, he wanted to skip to the dialogue, to where, as he saw it, the author stopped getting in the way and the action began. As he got older, he became more interested in the things which ‘register and weigh’ (Miller, 2010, p.viii) — place, objects, memories, the mood of the moment, dimensions he felt he could best capture thr…
Introduction
The book’s title comes from Raymond Williams’ (1979) observation that ‘many people are brought through quite profound disorders by the actual development of ordinary relationships’ (1979, p.184). For Williams, ‘the principle that you can only be brought through emotional crisis by a professional’ is an ‘extraordinary characteristic notion of bourgeois-bureaucratic society’. The potential of ‘ordinary relationships’ is much debated in the current …
Seizing the Spinning Top
Despite theoretical interest in reflexivity, empirical research in this area is still rare (Phillips and Western, 2005). This is, likely, in part, to be a result of the methodological difficulty involved: akin to seizing a spinning top to understand how it works (James, 1890, p.244, cited Archer, 2010, p.5). Yet we do need to find out more about reflexivity, about how we make our way in the world and, specifically, the role of emotions in this. T…
What We Talk about When We Talk about Emotion Culture
In this chapter I start by sketching some existing work on emotion culture, with therapeutic culture presented as a specific case. In doing so, I make two main arguments. The first is that despite bringing together the words ‘emotion’ and ‘culture’, sociological accounts of emotion culture are often curiously underengaged with the actual nature of culture and emotions or with the role of reflexivity. The second is that the claims made about such …
Conclusion
Writing about ordinary relationships is not a discrete endeavour; the interconnected nature of our lives means that, in writing about such relationships, one teeters much of the time on the verge of writing a sociology of everything. Some readers might feel that this balancing act has not been successful. Others might be questioning the focus on everyday emotional lives at this time and asking whether sociology has not got better things to do in …
Ordinary Relationships
Recent theorizing tends to position ordinary relationships as something we have lost, yet the nature of these relationships is not seriously engaged with. Drawing on rich empirical data, this book que