The political economy of the household: Neoliberal restructuring, enclosures, and daily life

Abstract

ABSTRACT By centralizing the material foundations of daily life, the burgeoning ‘Everyday IPE’ literature has the capacity to make significant advances in achieving a more integrated political economy approach. The literature's theoretical framework, however, needs to be expanded to be able to adequately address the ways that households and reproductive relations are impacted by the global economy. Addressing this gap, this article attempts to carve out a heuristic space that can more clearly establish variations in the social and economic purpose of households over time and understand how these shifts have been shaped by, and shape, the social relations of capitalism. It then brings this framework to bear on the case study of Canadian neoliberal restructuring, demonstrating that through labour market and welfare restructuring, and the promotion of private and individual social reproduction strategies, the neoliberal state's aggressive reordering of people's daily lives extends too, into the household and spheres of reproduction.