Abstract
This chapter explains the approach to practices that was formulated to guide the analysis presented in this book. One of the arguments I develop is that it is in and through specific performances of the practice of child caring, in interactions in market space, that the value of the young child and pecuniary value are co-realized. I therefore turn to theories of practice and draw specifically on Theodor Schatzki’s argument that practices are social entities that are organised through a teleoaffective structure, principles and instructions, and understandings. The central practice I am concerned with is that of child caring. I start by identifying the peculiarities of carrying this practice. Challenging everyday understandings of child caring as an entity, I argue that a range of entities can carry this practice, and perform it in ways that are different from the kinds of performances to which common understandings of child caring point. Next, I attend to the teleoaffective qualities of child caring, and advance the argument that these qualities are structured through knowledge practices that understand the young child in ways that give the practice of child caring its reason d’etre. As child caring can be carried by different entities, teleoaffective structuration needs to be acknowledged as a political process. The teleoaffective structuration of child caring happens in and through the repeated performances of different actants, and I have therefore also drawn on science and technology studies and feminist theory to argue that the analysis should be guided by a horizontal methodology. The chapter closes with a discussion of the ethnographic and textual research that was conducted.
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Notes
- 1.
The UK Office for National Statistics that that in 2014, 38% of live births were first births, 36% were second births and 16% were third births. https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/livebirths/bulletins/birthsbyparentscharacteristicsinenglandandwales/2014, accessed on 18 March 2017.
- 2.
This is not so different from the practice of inconspicuous consumption, discussed by Sullivan and Gershuny (2004), which theorises about the purchase of goods stimulated by dreaming or imagining participation in family/home based leisure pursuits for which there really is no time. Prospective parents plan and purchase products before these can be put into practice, some of which may, in the end, never get used.
- 3.
http://www.nurseryfair.com/, accessed on 27 April 2017.
- 4.
From the company’s website: http://www.clarionevents.com/?page=whatwedo, consulted on 26 January 2008.
- 5.
Webster’s new collegiate dictionary, for instance, translates encounter as ‘to come upon face to face’ … to come upon unexpectedly’ … ‘a chance meeting’ … a direct often momentary meeting’ (1979: 372).
- 6.
Clarion Events operates with a strict conception of the people that visit the shows it organises, and makes a distinction between exhibitors and visitors. Researchers with an interest in engaging with visitors are thus seen as exhibitors, and required to purchase exhibition space. Ethical approval for the overall research was sought from Durham University, including interviews with prospective and new parents. Interviewees were fully informed about the research, and were given a £15 Mothercare voucher as a thank you for giving their time to participate.
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Martens, L. (2018). Child Caring and Market Interactions. In: Childhood and Markets . Studies in Childhood and Youth. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-31503-8_3
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