Abstract
This book captures the imagination from the very first page. It begins with an account of the author becoming the keeper of the family photographs and spends some time analysing a picture of her paternal grandparents and trying to imagine their lives. In so doing Carol Smart reveals the deep sense of connectedness between her and these family members of whom she knows very little apart from what she is able to deduce and infer from this particular image. This discussion sets the scene for her argument that the sociology of the family and the theories that have informed it have paid scant attention to the meanings and emotions that make up our personal lives and that a new approach which remedies this omission is needed. In making this argument she draws on her experience both as a sociologist of personal life and as a social actor with a personal life of her own. Using her past research as well as her own family life, she constructs a compelling argument that it is time to pay attention to the sociological significance of personal life and to develop new ways of imagining and understanding it. In so doing she aims to develop a ‘new conceptual field’.
This ambitious task starts in chapter 1 with an assessment of the debates that have characterised the sociology of the family and a critique of the individualisation thesis that has been so influential, not only for sociologists of family and intimate life but also for political debates and policy developments. It continues, in chapter 2, with a discussion of five key concepts –biography, relationality, embeddedness, memory and imaginary. These concepts thread through the rest of the book where their significance for understanding personal life is explored. Throughout, autobiographical and research data are used to discuss different aspects of personal life including emotions, commitment and love; connections and tradition; secrets and lies; negative emotions; and the ways in which ‘things’ are imbued with meaning.
Emotions, commitment and love form the focus of the next chapter which discusses the way sociologists have studied love and commitment and the importance of emotions for understanding social life. To illustrate the delicate ways in which love and commitment are linked and how they are talked about and given meaning, Smart draws on material from her recent research on the commitment or civil partnership ceremonies of same-sex couples. This discussion reveals the ‘magical’ effect of emotions in giving meaning to the everyday and the mundane although, as Smart is quick to point out, emotions can be negative as well as positive and both aspects need to be taken into account in developing this new conceptual field. The following chapter explores how connections are created across generations through the telling of stories and the sharing of memories. The reproduction of family traditions fosters a sense of identity and belonging but, at the same time, provides a context within which children can ‘choose’ who they want to be. Children are not isolated individuals creating a ‘choice’ biography, however, but are embedded in a network of relationships which facilitate and shape their choices.
The chapter which most engaged me in what is a thoroughly engaging book was the one on secrets and lies where Smart uses her own family history to discuss the ways in which family stability could be built on family secrets, particularly secrets about paternity and illegitimacy. She contrasts this with the lack of possibility of secrets in the contemporary world where the truth of genetic origin, and particularly scientific certainty about paternity through DNA testing, can sometimes jeopardize ‘delicate social relationships’ and also create categories of fictive kin that link people who may not have any wish to be linked. This chapter is followed by an exploration of the negative emotions associated with conflict in intimate life which is entitled ‘Families we live with’. It focuses on the sometimes dark reality of intimate life rather than the imaginary family life which is so symbolically important or the positive emotions which are discussed earlier in the book. Here women's accounts of anxiety and children's accounts of living with warring and/or separating and divorced parents are drawn on to show that anxiety, hurt and disrespect are common forms of unhappiness within families. The final substantive chapter looks at ‘things’ – the home, food, money, possessions – to show how important they are in everyday life as repositories of relationships and emotions and as symbolic traces of inequalities. She also argues that sociologists should be attentive to the meaning that people give to these ‘things’ rather than imposing their own interpretation on, for instance, the significance of different systems of money management.
This book is carefully crafted and draws the reader in to a subtle and sensitive account of personal life and the importance of a sociological imagination that pays attention to meaning and the everyday. The use of autobiography is one way of doing this and, as Smart herself says, she draws on her own family history in order ‘to acknowledge the interplay between the real lives of those researched and those carrying out the research’ (186). This is done in an exemplary way and illuminates the importance of family secrets in ensuring, in this case, upward social mobility. Similarly the often lengthy narratives drawn from various pieces of research are used to develop the argument of the book that personal life can be understood better by recognising the importance of the meanings that people give to their own everyday experiences and actions. What Smart is arguing for is that sociologists take the personal seriously and give it the attention that they have hitherto devoted to the structural and cultural. She sees this as being facilitated by the cultural turn but also as being something that is resisted by a discipline that defines itself in relation to the social. Somehow this makes personal life out of bounds. She argues convincingly, however, that this position renders a sociological understanding of intimate life difficult, if not impossible, and that it is time to acknowledge the importance of the personal alongside the structural and cultural rather than as something which reflects or reproduces them.