num_pages: 360
description: An AltaMira Press BookDeviating significantly from the existing discourses on family and kinship, this volume of original essays (a companion to SHIFTING CIRCLES OF SUPPORT, AltaMira Press, 1996) offers a fresh conceptualization which views individuals and, then, relationships as crucial elements.Through a combination of macro and micro perspectives, it provides a comparative and gendered analysis of shifts within marriage, family kin and social networks of people who live in societies undergoing substantial change in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia. The analysis develops a critique of certain hegemonic qualities of the term "family," its supposedly unchanging character, as well as its assumed harmonious nature. In fact, the family is viewed as a primary social arena where relationships are constantly renegotiated and which, while providing valuable security and support, also contains exploitation and violence. Overall, the volume articulates a fresh approach to kinship and family through which subtle erosions in the security of vulnerable individuals--not only women, but also children and the elderly--can be uncovered. It highlights the importance of the comparative perspective and the urgency of adopting such an approach for policy initiatives.
language: English
title: Negotiation and Social Space: A Gendered Analysis of Changing Kin and Security Networks in South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa
titlecomplete: Negotiation and Social Space: A Gendered Analysis of Changing Kin and Security Networks in South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa
publisher: SAGE Publications Pvt. Ltd