Gender, Family and Work in Naples

Description

Breaking new ground in Mediterreanean anthropology, this book rejects the discipline's traditional focus on honour and shame in small face-to-face communities, and suggests instead that gender and sexuality interact with material processes in the constitution of personal and social identities. In this ethnographic account of the labour market in Naples, the author shows how cultural definitions of gender can be used to investigate broad social processes. Scarce stable employment in the area means that household members are forced to diversify their economic activities in order to survive. Petty entrepreneurship is an option which is almost exclusively available to men. Women, who are either unable or unwilling to obtain factory work, are generally confined to the status of outworkers. The author emphasises that individual choices cannot be attributed solely to economic opportunities but that concepts of selfhood, gender identity and the symbolic value of female sexuality are also important.

Victoria A. Goddard Goldsmiths College,University of London

'...accessible not only because of the language, but also because of style. The book is very readable, and could well function as a textbook for Italianists or South Europeanists of different persuasions. ... Goddard's method of discussing economic, political and social issues together with issues usually defined as 'cultural' will hopefully attract a large number of non-anthropologists to read the book, as well as convincing fellow anthropologists of the relevance of 'macro' issues for the study of culture. ...An additional strength of (the) book is the author's ability and willingness to discuss and draw insights from very different research traditions and fields...' South European Society & Politics 'Because of its theme, the book spans several disciplines and concerns: anthropology and ethnography of the Mediterranean and of cities, social development, history, and women's studies. It is in reconciling these different disciplinary strands that the book has its main strength.' Development and Change 'Goddard not only provides the reader with a critical understanding of the complex structural conditions that affect women's lives and their situation in society but also successfully shows how gender interacts with the socially significant inequalities, and hierarchies in shaping both women's and men's status experience and identity.' Self, Agency & Society