In this section, which is a vast topic, I’m going to try and focus on how we ‘perform’ family, developing on from Talcott Parson’s (1959) functionalist interpretation of the purpose of a family. He identified two functions of the family that he perceives as being ‘basic and irreducible’. These functions are:
1. The primary socialisation of children;
2. The stabilisation of adult personalities of the population of the society.
Conversely, we can look to Margaret Mead’s foundational study (1928) [note that her work is earlier than Parsons] that established that different models of family (compared to that of the morally prescribed American family unit) had significant implications for the way in which the whole society worked, in terms of quality of family relationships, community relations, sexuality, and child development. https://www.loc.gov/exhibits/mead/field-sepik.html
In other words, a different approach to ‘socialisation’ of the child within the family has a different dynamic of power/control and resistance. But, we must remember that Mead has been heavily criticised for poor or naive fieldwork (Freeman, 1984) in which Samoan society is highly competitive and beset by conflict, aggression, rape and rape. Even the family context is marked by firm parental authority and harsh discipline. This is a lesson in doing good fieldwork, but also not being seduced by our own romantic ideas of a particular grouo of people or professional setting.
Let’s take a quiet moment to get our minds wrapped round Judith Butler’s idea of ‘performativity’, in this case of gender. This relates to the myriad of ways in which we are expected (or forced or coerced) to perform, to fulfil other people’s expectations of gender.
Commonplace communication and speech acts are performative, in that they serve to define identity. A common example is the act of saying “I pronounce you man and wife” by a licensed minister before two people who are prepared to wed
Gender is “a stylized repetition of acts . . . which are internally discontinuous . . .[so that] the appearance of substance is precisely that, a constructed identity, a performative accomplishment which the mundane social audience, including the actors themselves, come to believe and to perform in the mode of belief” (Gender Trouble). To say that gender is performative is to argue that gender is “real only to the extent that it is performed” (Gender Trouble).
Butler echoes Foucault’s notions of power/control when she describes performativity as “that reiterative power of discourse to produce the phenomena that it regulates and constrains” (Butler, 1993). Note the use of the terms ‘regulates and constrains’.
But, lets be careful here. Although Butler is very influential, her work is also strongly contested, just as Mead’s above (Benhabib 1995). Her work can, for example, be used to suggest that homosexuality is performed, and therefore not ‘natural’ and is fluid. These debates are not a problem, because the nature of sociology is to debate and discuss rather than blindly accept what sociologists claim. It should warn us not to just write down what someone says, just because they are an important or influential writer. We should always try and see how arguments and debates develop over time.
Moving on to family, the Simpsons will help us explore some of the facets of ‘family’
Being more serious about this, let’s take apart the notion of the family. Ask yourself, who do you consider to be family? Who would you include and exclude, and why? What social norms and behaviours have influenced your choices?
Lets’ have a look:
These films are here for you to get a few ideas of what to look for in the textbooks
References
Benhabib, S. (1995). Feminist contentions: A philosophical exchange.
Butler, Judith (1993). Bodies that Matter: On the Discursive Limits of “Sex”. New York: Routledge. pp. xii
Butler, J. (2011). Gender trouble: Feminism and the subversion of identity. routledge.
Freeman, D. (1983). Margaret Mead and the Heretic: the making and unmaking of an anthropological myth. Penguin Group USA.
Mead, M. (1928). Corning of age in Samoa. Corning of age in Samoa.
