An exploratory exercise to enrich the home notion with
a cognitive mapping-based literature review -
a study note
Prepared by Joseph, K.K. Ho Dated: December 16, 2017
Part 1: Coding on ideas from the literature on home,
family and marriage
Table: The key variables for enriching the home notion
with referencing
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Key variables
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Relevant
academic ideas with referencing
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Variable 1: The meaning-making processes
on family
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1.1. "People’s concept of family is likely to be
formed from the language they hear and use and the experiences they have
regarding family. Through socialization, interaction, and language,
individuals construct the realities in which they live (Gergen, 1994).
Societies also determine who should live together, what tasks should be
performed, and how people should interact; those not fitting into these
prescriptions often become stigmatized (Ferree, 1990)" (Weigel, 2008);
1.2. "Debates about
welfare reform, same-sex marriages, common law marriage, pro-life versus
pro-choice, health care benefits for family and nonfamily members, or
concerns about family values and the perceived demise of the family play out
in political, legal, and media arenas" (Weigel, 2008);
1.3. "Historically,
African Americans have held a view of family and kinship that focused on
extended rather than nuclear relationships. The emphasis on extended family
groups originated in the West Africa communities from which slaves were
taken, was maintained throughout the eras of slavery and emancipation, and
has contributed to the resilience of African American families" (Stewart, 2007);
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Variable 2: The meaning-making processes
on marriage
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2.1. "For
hundreds of years marriage was an essential step on the road to full
adulthood in Western countries" (Anon. 2017);
2.2. "By the mid-20th century
marriage was almost unavoidable. The idea that people ought to wed and then
form a household with a primary male breadwinner was, in the words of
Stephanie Coontz, an American historian, "like a steamroller that
crushed every alternative view" (Anon. 2017);
2.3. "... in many countries
marriage has become unmoored from parenthood" (Anon. 2017);
2.4. "Today love is triumphant. The
merchants at the National Wedding Show invariably report that every couple
insists on the wedding being romantic and special" (Anon. 2017);
2.5. "The
purpose of marriage has changed over time (Campbell & Wright, 2010). In
the mid-1800s, the purposes of marriage were for social, economic and
political reason. After the industrial revolution, purposes of marriage changed
into love and personal fulfilment. However, these motives are very fragile
and build instable relationship because when love fades, it leads towards
infidelity and divorce" (Manap, Kassim, Hoesni, Nen, Idris and
Ghazali, 2013);
2.6.
"A research conducted by Oxford Centre for Family Law and Policy
concerning the declining rates of the first marriages in Wales and England
from 82.3 % (1971) to 25.5% (2001 onwards) found various purposes of marriage
like compliance with religious belief, social or cultural convention,
symbolic conformation and framework provision between the couple, and
pragmatic objectives. However, for some of them, marriage is meaningless. It
is only a celebration or a party (John, 2007)" (Manap,
Kassim, Hoesni, Nen, Idris and Ghazali, 2013);
2.7. "For
Metz, marriage in pluralistic societies requires the formal involvement of a
public authority, and the marital union should be primarily understood as a
tie binding individuals to an ethical authority. Metz contends that to maintain
its neutrality towards different conceptions of the good, the (liberal) state
cannot perform ‘the role of ethical authority’ (2010: 115)" (Nuti,
2016);
2.8. "The crucial expressive role that marriage
plays in societies is confirmed by the heated debate over same-sex marriage.
One of the most significant aspects of this discussion is the symbolic
importance that both conservative associations, such as churches, and some
LGBT organisations place on the word ‘marriage’, even when it is used to
define publicly-recognised personal arrangements" (Nuti,
2016);
2.9. "Drawing on Rawls’s political liberalism, Brake
claims that decisions concerning the basic structure of society, which
includes marriage and family, must be justifiable by means of political arguments
that do not rely on particular comprehensive religious and moral doctrines
(2012: 135–136)" (Nuti, 2016);
2.10. "Bride exchange has also been a popular traditional
marriage practice in rural Punjab (Jacoby and Mansuri, 2010; Zaman, 2013).
Exchange marriages generally take place between illiterate or less educated
families (Zaman, 2013). First cousins and extended families are preferred in
this regard. Honor of the family and economic constraints are observed to be
the reasons behind this practice" (Ahmad, Farooq and Kayani,
2015);
2.11. "In a village community,
traditional hierarchy in social structure constraints the marriage decisions
(Fricke et al., 1986). Caste also reflects the economic
class of the people in most of the cases" (Ahmad, Farooq and Kayani, 2015);
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Variable 3: Generating the impacts of
family
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3.1. "A range of family risk factors have been
linked to the development and exacerbation of adolescent drug abuse and
antisocial behavior. Of these family-related risk factors, ineffective parenting
practices, especially poor parental monitoring (Pettit, Bates, Dodge, &
Meece, 1999), disorganized family management strategies (Swadi, 1999),
coercive and manipulative attempts to control the adolescent (Loeber &
Stouthamer-Loeber, 1998), and low levels of involvement and autonomy granting
(Gray & Steinberg, 1999) have been implicated as among the most important
predictors of the severity of adolescent substance abuse and antisocial
behavior" (Henderson,
Dakof, Schwartz and Liddle, 2006);
3.2. "Using the concept of ‘‘family strategy’’,
they [social historians] have tried to answer the question of how, within the
context of the family, individuals adapted their actions to take account of
those of other family members and of economic opportunities so as to ensure
income now and in the future. The authors have opted to focus on the labor
and income strategies of families, treating families as a dynamic
constellation of individuals" (Engelena, Kokb and Paping, 2004);
3.3. "The dissolution of the American family has long been of
interest to social scientists. Increasing rates of divorce in the United
States have been amply documented by census data (U.S. Bureau of the Census,
1990)" (Sweeney and Bracken, 2000);
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Variable 4: Diversity of meanings of family
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4.1. "....
According to children, children are central to what the family is, so that
children do not see couples without children as constituting a family"
(James, 2013);
4.2. "Beginning
with Burgess’s (1926) classic definition of a family as a unity of
interacting personalities, scholars have offered a host of formal definitions
of family. Koerner and Fitzpatrick (2004) grouped the various definitions into
three general perspectives. The first perspective includes structural definitions, which are “based on the
presence or absence of certain family members” such as parents, children, and
extended family members (p. 177)......
A second perspective on family includes definitions stressing the
accomplishment of psychosocial functions and tasks (Koerner &
Fitzpatrick, 2004). Definitions within this functional perspective focus on the institutional aspects
of family in the performance of necessary societal functions. These functions
include maintaining a household, socializing children, providing emotional
and material support, and fulfilling roles...... The third definitional perspective
identified by Koerner and Fitzpatrick (2004) includes perspectives
emphasizing transactional definitions in which “groups of intimates
through their behavior generate a sense of family identity with emotional
ties and an experience of a history and a future” (p. 177). For example,
Bogenschneider (2002) saw the family as the only institution based primarily
on love and caring, connectedness, and commitment" (Weigel, 2008);
4.3. "One reason
researchers and practitioners may have trouble reaching agreement on a
formal, classical definition of family may be that the concept may not have a
classical definition. Many concepts, such as love, commitment, jealousy, and
family, may be characterized as prototypes (Rosch, 1978). Prototypes are
laypersons’ understandings of the meaning of concepts, which consist of
“interrelated sets of attributes commonly ascribed to the concept” (Surra
& Bohman, 1991, p. 286)" (Weigel, 2008);
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Variable 5: Strong linkage between the
notions of home and family
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5.1. "...
for some, such as Allan and Crow (1989), “the link between home and family is
so strong that the terms are almost interchangeable” such that “without the family
a home is only a house”; for others, however, this view is “ideologically laden
and premised on the white, middle-class, heterosexual nuclear family”
(Mallett 2004: 73)" (James, 2013);
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Variable 6: Generating the impacts of
marriage
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6.1. "In many
poor and middle-income countries the law still does not recognize unmarried
couples and treats their offspring as virtual non-people" (Anon. 2017);
6.2. "The third great global change is the growing
acceptance of divorce. It is now more common in many countries, especially
fast-modernising ones where women are becoming economically self-sufficient"
(Anon. 2017);
6.3. "In rich countries, the
institutions of marriage increasingly confers advantages on people who
already have many. Affluent, highly educated men and women marry late and after
careful consideration. Their marriages and highly successful - on average,
almost certainly the happiest and most fulfilling that the world has ever
seen" (Anon. 2017);
6.4. "Marriage
is a challenging institution. Despite a good beginning, many couples end up
not satisfied with their marriage relationship (Daneshpour, Asoodeh, Khalili,
Lavasani, & Dadras, 2011). In a study conducted in Iran, Daneshpour and
friends (2011) reported that 15% of registered divorces occur during the
first year of marriage. Meanwhile, 53% of the divorce cases take place at the
fifth year of marriage" (Manap, Kassim, Hoesni, Nen, Idris and
Ghazali, 2013);
6.5. "According to Wardle (2011), gender integration is
one of the important purposes of marriage. It comprises a number of specific
purposes of marriage such as safe sexual relations, responsible procreation,
optimal childrearing, healthy human relationship development and protecting
the roles of women for the benefit of the society" (Manap,
Kassim, Hoesni, Nen, Idris and Ghazali, 2013);
6.6.
"Feminist scholars have highlighted the vulnerability and oppression
suffered by women within gender-structured marriages, while also challenging the justice of
the institution of marriage. Some have noted that marriage has historically
been ‘the vehicle through which the apparatus of state can shape the gender
order’ (Cott, 2000: 3)" (Nuti, 2016);
6.7.
"Liberalism has generally remained silent about the profound injustice
and oppression suffered by women within the family and as a result of marital
ties. One of the first and few liberals to examine the family as a locus of
injustice was Susan Moller Okin" (Nuti, 2016);
6.8.
"Marriage is among the most profound of all human relations
that generally is established with the consent of both the partners (Blau et
al., 1984). They conclude that most marriages are confined to
in-groups even if people prefer to marry outside their immediate kinship
network. Biraderi or caste is referred as patrilineage and
is generally considered while taking marriage decisions in the Subcontinent.
Marriage is a key mechanism of taking care of family lineage and defining the
boundaries of social relationships ( Jauregui and McGuinness, 2003)" (Ahmad, Farooq and Kayani, 2015);
6.9. "Evidence from a number of studies has shown
that married persons, and particularly men, tend to live longer than their
unmarried counterparts (e.g. Hu & Goldman, 1990; Lillard & Waite,
1995; Tucker, Friedman, Wingard, & Schwartz, 1996) but the reasons for this
are not completely clear" (Gellatly and Störmer, 2017);
6.10. "... those with mental and physical disabilities were less
likely to marry, whilst also being less likely to live long lives,
whereas those who were healthy were not only mutually attracted to each other,
but their union in marriage was promoted and supported by society" (Gellatly and Störmer, 2017);
6.11. "The social
correlates of marriage breakdown include temporal, life-course, attitudinal
and economic factors. Temporal factors associated with marriage breakdown
reflect the influence of historical time, such as the social contexts and
broad social trends that impact on marital breakdown (Thornton and Rodgers,
1987). Life-course factors relate to the timing of specific life events that
precede marital breakdown..... an
economic argument asserts that socio-economic factors influence whether a marriage
continues or ends, where the husband’s lack of socio-economic resources and a
wife’s access to socio-economic resources are destabilizing forces for
marriage" (Hewitt, Baxter and Western, 2005);
6.12.
"The main family background factors associated with marriage
breakdown include race and ethnicity (Bracher et al., 1993; De Vaus et al.,
2003; Tzeng and Mare, 1995), socio-economic status of parents (Bumpass et
al., 1991; Wolfinger, 1999) and parental divorce (Amato, 1996; Teachman,
2002)" (Hewitt, Baxter and Western, 2005);
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Variable 7: Making and unmaking home
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7.1. "...
Home unmaking is the
precarious process by which material and/or imaginary components of home are
unintentionally or deliberately, temporarily or permanently, divested,
damaged or even destroyed" (Baxter and Brickell, 2014);
7.2. "...home unmaking
is part of the lifecourse of all homes and is experienced by all home
dwellers at some point in their housing biographies" (Baxter
and Brickell, 2014);
7.3. "For women who leave abusive
marriages in Cambodia, for example, Brickell (2014) has shown how home unmaking
has the potential to be concurrently liberating and disempowering, as trade-offs
are made between a life free from violence and the stigma associated with a
broken family" (Baxter and Brickell, 2014);
7.4. "Burrell’s article shows home unmaking
as a multisensory process, involving excessive noise and dirt, which impacts on
residents’ emotions and behavior" (Baxter and Brickell, 2014);
7.5. "Some home unmakings,
such as in natural disasters, are highly visible, especially when they are
given global media coverage. Yet it is also important to consider the
invisibilizing of home unmaking
stemming from discrimination, a lack of recognition, and the choice to
selectively attend to normative spaces of home and exclude those that do not
fit an ideal model" (Baxter and Brickell, 2014);
7.6."...there may be underlying reasons behind
the concealment of home unmaking.
In the context of domestic violence, for example, research has emphasized how
“the ideological scripting of home as intimate and safe makes violence against
women difficult to see,” with women often tolerating violence so as not to
signal a deep failure or collapse of home" (Baxter
and Brickell, 2014);
7.7. "... a biography of home is
a story of its making and unmaking"
(Baxter and Brickell, 2014);
7.8.
"The most common reason for a young person to
become “homeless” is relationship breakdowns with parents or guardians. The
breakdown itself is often a result of parents’ substance misuse, domestic
violence, lack of understanding of mental health issues, or the introduction of
a step-parent into the household, which then leads to the young person being
asked to leave home" (Tunåker, 2015);
7.9.
" The extent to which social bonds and a
sense of family are formed when a young person moves away from their family
of origin, directly influences their feelings of “home” in the location they
move to" (Tunåker, 2015);
7.10.
"....neighborhoods are open and fluid “sites
of multiple geographies of affiliation, linkage and flow” (Amin 2004: 38). These geographies and the temporary
boundaries they construct are often mediated by emotions. As Ahmed (2004: 117) states: “emotions are not simply
‘within’ or ‘without’ but […] they create the very effect of the surface or
boundaries of bodies and worlds.” This implies that feeling at home in the
neighborhood is also intertwined with and conditioned by feelings of
belonging on different spatial and temporal scales such as an individual’s
dwelling unit, a city, a nation, or a past" (de
Wilde, 2016);
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Variable 8: Diversity of meanings on
home
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8.1. "....
for those young people making the transition from living with their natal
family to leading an independent adult life, home was linked very much to a
sense of belonging and identity; home “was somewhere that accepted you as you
were,” even though, in everyday life, there were often tensions between these
young people and their parents about the ways in which they used the temporal
and material spaces through which that sense of home was constructed"
(James, 2013);
8.2. "... in the twenty-first century it is now
recognized that this idealization of the family home is not always, and
necessarily, a fixed site of comfortable domesticity for children themselves.
For example, as the understanding of child abuse has grown, it has become
clear that the family home can be the context for violent and uncaring
relationships across the generations" (James, 2013);
8.3. "... Sibley (1995) and Chapman (1999) have
both also shown that the home often has very material reminders of the
inherently hierarchical relations through which family relationships are
managed on a daily basis—dad’s chair on which children cannot sit or the
master bedroom, with its private bathroom, into which children venture at
their peril" (James, 2013);
8.4. "..... a sense of home is constructed through
the emotions—through the relationships of love, intimacy, and anger that
pepper people’s everyday family lives and provide them with a sense of
identity and belonging" (James, 2013);
8.5. "The challenges of conceptualizing home for
migrants arise from new definitions of time, space, and place they discover
when negotiating social fields of transnationalism" (Smith,
2014);
8.6. "In recent years there has been a
trend to move away from the concept of home as a physical structure with a
roof and four walls, instead exploring home as it relates to particular
theoretical, social, and cultural contexts" (Smith,
2014);
8.7. ".....our concept of home gains
meaning through taking journeys away from it. Through the absence from home,
home itself gains meaning. The awareness of home and its meanings is
heightened in newcomers, refugees, and asylum seekers because the distance to
their former household—likely including family members and/or friends who
formed the base from of feelings of safety, security, and ease—creates a
feeling of insecurity and a longing for home" (Smith,
2014);
8.8. "... home is an ambiguously
experienced “space of belonging and alienation, intimacy and violence, desire
and fear” (Blunt and Varley 2004: 3), meaning that dwelling and belonging “at
home” is rarely a completed endeavor" (Baxter
and Brickell, 2014);
8.9. "Duyvendak (2011: 38–9) distinguishes between home as
“haven” and home as “heaven.” Home-as-haven “covers aspects of home that
pertain to feelings of safety, security and privacy, which most often relate
to the micro level of the house…[It is a] place for retreat, relaxation,
intimacy and domesticity.” Home-as-heaven is “more outward-oriented and/or
symbolic: it helps individuals to ‘be’, develop and express themselves
collectively, and to connect with others, often through the creation of
intentional communities" (de Wilde, 2016);
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Part 2: A cognitive map on the ideas from the literature on home, family
and marriage (re: Part 1)
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