Call for papers. Monograph: Crisis and transformations of the family in the neoliberal context
Coordinators: Anna Morero Beltrán and Carme Vivancos-Sánchez, Universitat de Barcelona
The deadline for submission of proposals is December 20, 2024.
In recent decades, neoliberalism has generated profound changes in social and family policies that have had an impact on the family institution, redefining its structure, relationships and dynamics. This economic, political and social system that promotes individualism and contractual freedom, cuts in health, education and welfare, has also redefined family roles and responsibilities, all with the aim of reaffirming the sexual division of labor, the traditional nuclear family as a reference model, as well as placing in the market all the mechanisms necessary to guarantee its reproduction, such as reproductive technologies.
At the same time, neoliberal policies have fostered an alliance with social conservatism, stressing the importance of the family as a pillar of the socioeconomic order (Cooper, 2017). In this sense, neoliberalism and social conservatism seek to restore the family to a central position, generating a union characterized by a free market economy that is supported by a conservative social structure (Cooper, 2017). That is, the role of the family in the sustainability of life and the labor force and its relationship with the state and the market, which need each other to survive (Vivancos-Sánchez, 2024).
In this context, questions arise about care, private debt and possibilities for alternative social organization that challenge the traditional nuclear family and associated relational models. Authors such as Michelle O'Brien (2023) and Sophie Lewis (2023) put the theory of the abolition of the family back at the center of academic and social debate. With proposals that show that the neoliberal order is based on individualism that denies the indispensability of the communitarian and the collective of care and bonds. Their contributions seek community alternatives where care is organized collectively allowing people to live and relate more freely and equitably (O'Brien, 2023; Lewis, 2023).
In this sense, we see that the current institutional and social configuration of the family makes it seem an undesirable option for some people, while for others, the family acts as a refuge in a hostile world (Fraser and Vivancos-Sánchez, 2024). A world that is going through a crisis of care and social reproduction, which paradoxically depends on unpaid care work centralized in families, while at the same time destabilizing and devaluing it, generating the persistence and emergence of inequalities according to gender, origin, ethnic group and social class (Fraser, 2022).
Based on these ideas, this monograph aims to bring together contributions from the social sciences that analyze and reflect on the following questions:
- What is the relationship between neoliberalism and the transformations of the family?
- What tensions are we currently witnessing between individualism and family solidarities?
- What is the impact of the cuts in the welfare state on the family?
- Which revolutionary movements are making new proposals for family and social organization?
- Experiences of family and social organization as alternatives to the nuclear family.
- Critical reflections on the theory of the abolition of the family.
- Critical reflections on reproductive technologies as a way to strengthen and maintain the two-parent family model as the main and desirable model.
- Analysis of the theory of social reproduction and its relevance in the neoliberal context.
- Experiences of community organization as a way to experience security and create the basic conditions for the survival of society itself.
References
Cooper, Melinda. (2017). Family Values: Between Neoliberalism and the New Social Conservatism. Zone Books
Fraser, Nancy. (2022). Cannibal Capitalism: How our System is Devouring Democracy, Care, and the Planet – and What We Can Do About It. Verso
Fraser, Nancy & Vivancos-Sánchez, Carme. (2024). En conversación con Nancy Fraser. Clivaje. Estudios Y Testimonios Del Conflicto Y El Cambio Social, (12), e–46714
Lewis, Sophie. (2023). Abolir la família. Un manifest a favor de les cures i l’alliberament. Manifest llibres.
O’Brien, Michelle. (2023). Family Abolition Capitalism and the Communizing of Care. Pluto Press
Vivancos-Sánchez, Carme. (2024, febrero). Entre la feblesa i la romantització de l’amor i la família: contradiccions en l’era neoliberal. Catarsi Magazín. https://catarsimagazin.cat/familia-neoliberal/
