An exploratory exercise to enrich the home notion with a cognitive mapping-based literature review - a study note

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

Key  variables	Relevant academic ideas with referencing
Variable 1: The meaning-making processes on family	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);
Variable 2: The meaning-making processes on marriage	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);
Variable 3: Generating the impacts of family	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);
Variable 4: Diversity of meanings of family	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);
Variable 5: Strong linkage between the notions of home and family	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);
Variable 6: Generating the impacts of marriage	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);
Variable 7: Making and unmaking home	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);
Variable 8: Diversity of meanings on home	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);

Part 2: A cognitive map on the ideas from the literature on home, family and marriage (re: Part 1)

References

Ahmad, K., A. Farooq and A.K. Kayani. 2015. "Marriage and family structures in the rural Punjab" International Journal of Sociology and Social Policy 35(5/6): 306 - 324 (Permanent link to this document: http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/IJSSP-05-2014-0034).

Anon. 2017. "A looser knot" Special Report - Marriage, The Economist November 25: 3-5.

de Wilde, M. 2016. "Home is Where the Habit of the Heart is" Home Cultures 13(2): 123-144, DOI: 10.1080/17406315.2016.1190583.

Engelena, T., J. Kokb and R. Paping. 2004. "The family strategies concept: An evaluation of four empirical case studies" History of the Family 9: 239–251.

Gellatly, C. and C. Störmer. 2017. "How does marriage affect length of life? Analysis of a French historical dataset from an evoluntary perspective" Evolution and Human Behavior 38, Elsevier: 536-545.

Henderson, C.E., G.A. Dakof, S.J. Schwartz and H.A. Liddle. 2006. "Family Functioning, Self-Concept, and Severity of Adolescent Externalizing Problems" J Child Fam Stud 15:721–731.

Hewitt, B., J. Baxter and M. Western. 2005. "Marriage breakdown in Australia: The social correlates of separation and divorce" Journal of Sociology 41(2): 163–183.

James, A. 2013. "Home Talk" Home Cultures 10(3): 315-328 [url address: http://dx.doi.org/10.2752/175174213X13739735973462].

Manap, J., A.C. Kassim, S. Hoesni, S. Nen, F. Idris and F. Ghazali. 2013. "The Purpose of Marriage Among Single Malaysian Youth" World Conference on Psychology and Sociolgy 2012, Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 82, Elsevier: 112-116.

Nuti, A. 2016. "How should marriage be theorised?" Feminist Theory 17(3), Sage: 285-302.

Richard Baxter, R. and K. Brickell. 2014. "For Home UnMaking" Home Cultures 11(2): 133-143.

Smith, A. 2014. "Interpreting Home in the Transnational Discourse" Home Cultures 11(1): 103-122.

Stewart, P. 2007. "Who is Kin?" Journal of Human Behavior in the Social Environment 15(2-3): 163-181 (DOI: 10.1300/J137v15n02_10).

Sweeney, R.B. and B.A. Bracken. 2000. "Influence of Family Structure on Children's Self Concept" Canadian Journal of School Psychology 16(1): 39-52.

Tunåker, C. 2015 “No Place Like Home?” Home Cultures 12(2): 241-259, DOI: 10.1080/17406315.2015.1046300.

Weigel, D.J. 2008. "The Concept of Family An Analysis of Laypeople’s Views of Family" Journal of Family Issues 29(11) November: 1426-1447.