The Domestic Domain: Chances, Choices and Strategies of Family Households

This work brings together theoretical frameworks relevant to the study of family households from several root disciplines, each framework highlighting a different approach. It also contains applications of each framework to important problems concerning preconditions and consequences of family household functioning in a cross-cultural perspective. Contrary to usual practices in the field of family studies, the book focuses on family households as active agents and units of consumption and production, managing both material and immaterial resources. The work also shows how actual issues regarding family household can be framed conceptually and used in interdisciplinary projects. Key studies performed in both Western and non-Western countries exemplify ways in which such issues may be transformed into research questions and research designs in different cultures. Both key studies and and suggestions for "new directions" will stimulate critical thinking of students and scholars. Conclusions show the importance of domestic domain in society in relation to the role of the public domain and the formal economic domain. /the domestic domain operates not only as a reactive and conservative system, but also generates and mediates impulses for social development. The comparative perspective will appear to be highly fruitful in a world in which boundaries between traditional and modern, between Western and non-Western, urban and rural, are dissolving.