- Between weeks 8 and 12, each student should provide a weekly reflection (500 words) on the data you have collected to date.
- What data did you collect?
- What is your initial impression of the data?
- How have the data you have collected this week changed/progressed your thinking about your research project?
- What challenges did you encounter while collecting the data?
- What are your next steps?
I got Melinda Cooper’s book Family Values and read it this week. I think it will be very useful to me, and since it is rather long and a bit thick, that is where I put my effort this week. Her ideas have complicated my ideas about the relationship between neoliberalism and the history of family structure. It reminds me of reading the Sociological Imagination, and how we can consider sociology to be similar to the in-depth, careful study of the present as history. Of course, to understand the present, we also look back into the past to understand the origins of social institutions and relationships. I feel that Cooper does both. I also feel confident that I can use Cooper’s sources to gain even more of an understanding of the sociological literature on the topic.
I am also considering whether I could go back to some of the readings from my Sociology of Sexuality class from sophomore year–I remember that we had one reading that mentioned ‘welfare queens’ and there could be something interesting to be gained from looking at the sexuality-related gender notions more closely. Of course, I will have to be careful to keep my scope focused and not make my topic too wide.
One slight issue that I have with Cooper’s writing is that I feel like she refers to neoliberals as somewhat monolithic, and as a definite group in a way that I am not sure they are. Neoliberalism as a philosophy has been incredibly pervasive, to the extent that its doctrines are repeated and argued from those who I would not specifically label as being part of a ‘neoliberal’ group with unified social patterns and beliefs. I want to be careful about labels.
My next steps will be to continue gathering information from the directions that I have previously specified, and beginning to sort it into topics that I can develop into points.
Cooper, Melinda. 2017. Family Values: Between Neoliberalism and the New Social Conservatism. Zone Books.
Comments:
I am glad to hear that you found Cooper’s book helpful. And I am not surprised that she is using “neoliberals” as a monolithic group (David Harvey sometimes does this too). I think your critique is insightful.
Looking at the theme “welfare queen” can be interesting. But keep in mind that in that case, you would be using neoliberalism in a slightly different way. Your original idea was to analyze the link between the naturalization of gender and that of free-market, which is a neoliberal fiction. The “welfare queen” on the other hand says something else about neoliberalism. It epitomizes the racialization and stigmatization of poverty that put the blame on the poor (“they are promiscuous” ” they are free loaders” “they always make bad choices” etc.)The poor themselves are seen as responsible for their misery not the state itself. It is definitely a sexualized category.
I am not saying that it is a bad idea to combine these two themes. It is not at all. I just wanted to draw your attention to what doing so would mean for your focus on neoliberalism (maybe you are already aware of this). Let me know if this is not clear and you want to talk about it.