Families of a new world: Gender, politics, and state development in a global context

Abstract

Families of a New World: Gender, Politics, and State Development in a Global Context. Lynne Haney & Lisa Pollard (Eds.). New York: Routledge. 2003. 300 pp. ISBN 0-41593447-8. $23.95 (paper). Consistent with Urie Bronfenbrenner's (1979) ecological theory, this anthology focuses on the associations between macrosystems (politics, economics, public policy, law, social services, media, agriculture) and the family microsystem. The text's framework is a feminist analysis of state development in a historical/cultural context. Chapter authors note the ways in which macrosystems affect men and children, but the greatest emphasis is on women's familial experiences or imagery of women in the family. The text provides a diverse sample of cultures; chapters address families in countries such as Australia, Chile, China, Egypt, Germany, Hungary, Malawi (when it was still the British Protectorate of Nyasaland), Puerto Rico, and the United States. The text is divided into three sections: (a) familialism as state imagining, (b) familialism as state building, and (c) familialism as state reform. The first section focuses on events from the early 19th century to the mid-20th century. The first two chapters (and a similar chapter in the second section) analyze how British/U.S. colonialists applied a Euro-American definition of the appropriate family structure to justify limitations placed on indigenous women and families in Egypt, Puerto Rico, and Nyasaland. The authors indicate that colonialists work from the premise that certain states and groups were unprepared for self-rule until a Euro-American model of family was adopted. A third chapter in this section details the description of family and gender in the Zionist movement. This chapter connects individuals' relational histories with their artistic and activistic expressions of family values. The second section on state building examines the ways in which states actively engaged in family reform. This section centers on events from the late 1800s to the 1950s in Chile, the United States, and Australia. In each country, the family was perceived to be a foundation for the state because the family was the source of productive citizens. Individuals, communities, and the state were expected to benefit from successful families. Because the family and state were mutually dependent, the state used a variety of resources (e.g., material incentives, legal sanctions) to promote the desired family structures and relations. The last section has three chapters that focus on more recent (1950s to the present) developments. These chapters delineate changes in (a) Hungary and the Czech Republic following the decline of socialism, (b) Germany following reunification, and (c) China following the implementation of household registration to control urban female workers. Given the contemporary nature of the events, these three chapters contain qualitative data from interviews with women who identify the direct and indirect effects of such events on their family lives. …