Essay - Het persoonlijke is geopolitiek

Abstract

This column argues that the slogan ‘the personal is political’ – when slightly rephrased – is now even more to the point than ever before. The personal has become ‘geopolitical’ due to the emergence of the socalled ‘global care chain’. Nowadays, families at both the higher and lower strata of society are organizing themselves on a transnational scale in a multitude of ways: as migrant care workers in the first world remitting their wages to their families in developing countries; as ‘dual career’ couples pursuing careers with globally operating companies and organizations; as transnational adoptive families; or as gay parents who have children with (foreign) surrogate mothers. These developments call into question the institute of the nuclear family that is securely embedded within one nation-state. Feminists would do well to take the lead in formulating new normative concepts and images of what families could and should be like.