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Embodied spaces, social places and Bourdieu: Locating and dislocating the child in family relationships

Lookup NU author(s): Emerita Professor Erica Haimes

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Abstract

This article deploys a Bourdieusian framework to analyse the process of how children are located in, and attached to, families. The focus is on children whose placement is problematic for some reason (such as adoption, egg and semen donation, surrogacy and so on). Through a detailed examination of four case studies in which the placement of children is disputed, I show how notions of embodied spaces (such as the womb) are part of the repertoire of arguments used for establishing claims as to the appropriate placing of such children. However, I also show how the significance of such spaces is relative to the importance attached to other spaces (e.g. geographical, domestic, metaphorical). The analysis demonstrates the usefulness of Bourdieu’s central concepts but also shows how those concepts might be both supplemented and challenged.

Publication metadata

Author(s): Haimes E

Publication type: Article

Publication status: Published

Journal: Body and Society

Year: 2003

Volume: 9

Issue: 1

Pages: 11-33

ISSN (print): 1357-034X

ISSN (electronic): 1460-3632

URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1357034X030091002

DOI: 10.1177/1357034X030091002

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