No Place Like Home : Relationships and Family Life Among Lesbians and Gay Men - Softcover

Carrington, Christopher

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0226094863 ISBN 13: 9780226094861

Publisher: University of Chicago Press, 2002

Synopsis

In this rich, surprising portrait of the world of lesbian and gay relationships, Christopher Carrington unveils the complex and artful ways that gay people create and maintain both homes and "chosen" families for themselves.

"Carefully separating stereotype from reality, Carrington investigates family in the gay and lesbian community. Relying upon interviews and observation, the author analyzes the loves and routings of 52 diverse lesbian, gay, and bisexual couples in the Bay area. . . . [He] closes the work with a discussion of the raging same-sex marriage debate and posits an enlightened solution to this dilemma." —Library Journal

About this title

Review

In this sociological study of "lesbigay" domestic partnership, Christopher Carrington explores the expanded views of family that inform the lives of the 50 established Bay Area couples included in his study. Drawing from in-depth interviews, as well as weeklong field observations of eight households, he develops arguments on housework, caregiving, division of labor, "kinship work" on outside friendships and biolegal families, and the tricky concepts of fairness and egalitarianism within partnerships. Although far from a random sample of American gay men and lesbians, his subjects range widely in age, ethnicity, class background, and income level, although only five households with children were included. Couples were interviewed separately, revealing amusing disparities in their accounts of domestic life. The jargon and sociological hairsplitting make for some unintentional humor, as in the chapter on "feeding work" (known to the rest of us as shopping and cooking): "Planning meals, learning about foodstuffs and techniques, considering the preferences and emotions of significant others, and overseeing nutritional strategies frame the essential yet invisible precursor work to the actual daily process of preparing a meal." Let's eat! Not the perkiest book on gay and lesbian life, No Place Like Home nevertheless covers unfamiliar territory with intelligence and insight. --Regina Marler

From the Inside Flap

In this rich, surprising portrait of the world of lesbian and gay relationships, Christopher Carrington unveils the complex and artful ways that gay people create and maintain both homes and "chosen" families for themselves.

About this edition

• Publisher: University of Chicago Press
• Publication date: 2002
• ISBN 10: 0226094863
• ISBN 13: 9780226094861
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 285