‘Manic Mums’ and ‘Distant Dads’? Gendered geographies of care and the journey to school

Barker, John

doi:10.1016/j.healthplace.2010.04.001

Cited by 76 publications

(39 citation statements)

References 43 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…Gerald's narrative in particular highlights the ways in which his bodily appearance as an ageing man acts as a significant marker of difference and subtly challenges his sense of belonging in a broader carescape outside of the home: Gerald, age 63, re-married Several social relations determine Gerald's experience of the playschool where he takes his youngest daughter. He evidently feels out of place and this is attributed to both being a man, but also being an older man in a carespace where traditional configurations of gender (Barker 2011) and also age and family, are pervasive. Even though ideas about fatherhood and masculinities are changing, old men are evidently regarded as being outside of familial relations and carescapes (Barker 2008;Mac an Ghaill 2007).…”

Section: My Wife More As the Provider Of Food And Home Comforts Imentioning

confidence: 99%

“…As a result of existing material, institutional and discursive framings, alongside a privileging of focus on gender over other dimensions of identity, care has come to be understood as private and feminized (Atkinson, Lawson and Wiles 2011) and the central role of mothers in relationships with children (Barker 2011). Other than consideration of geographies of fathering (Aitken 2000;), men's situated practices of care in the family have received 1 much less attention (Barker 2011).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Other than consideration of geographies of fathering (Aitken 2000;), men's situated practices of care in the family have received 1 much less attention (Barker 2011). This is true of contemporary theorizing about men, masculinities and male identities in social geography more generally, when compared to the more numerous studies that focus on women, femininities and female identities (Hopkins and Noble 2009).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

Grandfathering as spatio-temporal practice: conceptualizing performances of ageing masculinities in contemporary familial carescapes

Tarrant

2013

Social & Cultural Geography

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This paper examines the spatio-temporalities of the intergenerational caring practices that contemporary grandfathers engage in with their grandchildren, in order to critique old men's constructions and performances of ageing masculinities, and the gendering and ageing of contemporary carescapes. Findings are based on 31 qualitative interviews and two participant observations, conducted in the NorthWest of England with men who are grandfathers. The concept of carescapes (Bowlby, Gregory and McKie 1997) is employed to explain that grandfathering is both spatially and temporally organized. Findings suggest that men construct distinctly masculine spaces of care later in life, contingent on both their resistance to spatially embedded ageism and their comparisons of grandfathering to previous lifecourse subjectivities, such as fathering. Complexity and diversity in how men negotiate these factors is also apparent and is explored. There is evidence for example that some men's performances of ageing masculinities contribute to the maintenance of a gendered division of labour in family care work, while others perform alternative masculinities that offer potential to transform gendered carespaces. This is further mediated by intergenerational interactions with children and grandchildren. Focus on old men who are grandfathers necessarily complicates geographical perspectives on the spatio-temporalities of multiple masculinities, ageing and informal familial care.Key words: Grandfathering; family; carescapes; masculinities; age; identity IntroductionAs a result of existing material, institutional and discursive framings, alongside a privileging of focus on gender over other dimensions of identity, care has come to be understood as Grandfather identities; neglected intersections of masculinities and 'old age'A small yet noteworthy body of sociological work is now attending to the apparent neglect of old men and ageing masculinities and it is this theoretical base that geographers could usefully exploit for developing and re-thinking the geographies of care as gendered, intergenerational and spatio-temporally organized, and masculinities as multiply produced, . These assumptions are problematic however as they are premised on essential understandings of both old age and hegemonic masculinity. Nonetheless this is theoretically interesting because the paradoxical and contradictory nature of these normative values suggests that ageing presents significant challenges to men as they get older and as they face the potential for gendered disempowerment resulting from the material processes of ageing. Geographies of ageing masculinitiesTo some extent the theoretical assumption that old age acts to de-gender old men has been replicated by social geographers, who rarely focus explicitly on old men and ageing masculinities. However limited research does suggest that old men's locations in age and gendered relations are of interest to geographers (Tarrant 2010). At one extreme, old men have been found to avoid public life altogether an...

show abstract

Section: My Wife More As the Provider Of Food And Home Comforts Imentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Grandfathering as spatio-temporal practice: conceptualizing performances of ageing masculinities in contemporary familial carescapes

Tarrant

2013

Social & Cultural Geography

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…For busy working parents, the need for awareness systems to foster communications between family members is all the more necessary now (Khan, Markopoulos, Mota, IJsselsteijn, & de Ruyter, 2006). In our own data we found that the everyday tasks of transporting children to and from various activities are often handled by mothers (Barker, 2011). Travel time is valuable for families in the car because it is often time spent telling troubles, experiencing togetherness and providing opportunities for resolving disputes and for teaching and learning (Laurier et al, 2008).…”

Section: Beyond Driving: Balancing Work Family and Rolesmentioning

confidence: 88%

Designing for Frustration and Disputes in the Family Car

Cycil

Perry

Laurier

2014

International Journal of Mobile Human Computer Interaction

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…We agree with Barker (2009) and Barker,Kraftl, Horton and Tucker (2009) that this critique certainlypertains to many classic studies of children'sindependent mobility and family transport practices. Barker's( 2008Barker's( , 2011 work has been important and distinctive in revealingt he complex social, familial, bodily,a ffective and sociotechnical processes which constitute, and matter to, family car journeys. We agree with Mitchell, Kearns and Collins (2007) and Ross (2007) that children and youngpeople's pedestrian mobilities could be productivelyexplored in asimilar way,but we worrythat calls for conceptual experimentation in this research context have typically gone unheeded.…”

Section: Tw Oapproaches To Pedestrian Practicesmentioning

confidence: 99%

‘Walking … just walking’: how children and young people's everyday pedestrian practices matter

Horton¹,

Christensen²,

Kraftl³

et al. 2013

Social & Cultural Geography

129

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This paper considers the importance of walking for many children and young people's everyday lives, experiences and friendships. Drawing upon research with 175 9-to 16-yearolds living in new urban developments in south-east England, we highlight key characteristics of (daily,t aken-for-granted, ostensibly aimless) walking practices, which were of constitutive importance in children and young people'sfriendships, communities and geographies. These practices were characteristically bounded, yet intense and circuitous. They were vivid, vital, loved, playful, social experiences yet also dismissed, with ashrug, as 'just walking'. We argue that 'everyday pedestrian practices' (after Middleton 2010, 2011) like these require critical reflection upon chief social scientific theorisations of walking, particularly the large body of literature on children'sindependent mobility and the rich, multi-disciplinary line of work known as 'new walking studies'. In arguing that these lines of work could be productively interrelated, we propound 'just walking'-particularly the often-unremarked way it matters-as akind of phenomenon which is sometimes done a disservice by chief lines of theory and practice in social and cultural geography.

show abstract

‘Manic Mums’ and ‘Distant Dads’? Gendered geographies of care and the journey to school

Cited by 76 publications

References 43 publications

Grandfathering as spatio-temporal practice: conceptualizing performances of ageing masculinities in contemporary familial carescapes

Grandfathering as spatio-temporal practice: conceptualizing performances of ageing masculinities in contemporary familial carescapes

Designing for Frustration and Disputes in the Family Car

‘Walking … just walking’: how children and young people's everyday pedestrian practices matter

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About