Contested Concepts in Gender and Social Politics

by Barbara Hobson, Jane Lewis, Birte Siim

Overview

An important contribution to the current literature on gender and social politics, this book challenges mainstream thinking on welfare states, citizenship, family, work, and social policy. Contested Concepts in Gender and Social Politics analyses the corresponding shifts in political discourse, and the changes in socio-political configurations that mirror changing gender relations.

The discussion is both international and interdisciplinary, and focuses on topics that include citizenship, social exclusion and inclusion, care, social capital and representation, amongst others. The contributors examine these issues in relation to current policy debates and consider how they are embedded in particular European intellectual traditions. They also explore how feminist scholarship has engaged with these issues, and assess how these contested concepts can improve understanding both of the position of women and of gender relations more broadly.

This is the first major transnational attempt to address the conceptual basis for current work in the field of social policy and social politics from both a feminist and genuinely comparative viewpoint. As such it will be invaluable to undergraduate and graduate students of social policy, politics and sociology.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781843768449
Publisher:	Edward Elgar Publishing
Publication date:	05/25/2004
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	256
Product dimensions:	6.12(w) x 9.25(h) x (d)

About the Author

Edited by Barbara Hobson, Professor of Sociology, Department of Sociology, Stockholm University, Sweden, Jane Lewis, formerly Professor of Social Policy, London School of Economics, UK and Birte Siim, Emeritus Associate Professor, Department of Politics and Society, Aalborg University, Denmark

Table of Contents

Contents:

1. Introduction: Contested Concepts in Gender and Social Politics
Barbara Hobson, Jane Lewis and Birte Siim

2. Citizenship
Barbara Hobson and Ruth Lister

3. Care: Actors, Relationships and Contexts
Arnlaug Leira and Chiara Saraceno

4. Social Exclusion and Gender Relations
Mary Daly and Chiara Saraceno

5. Contractualization
Ute Gerhard, Trudie Knijn and Jane Lewis

6. Commodification and De-commodification
Trudie Knijn and Ilona Ostner

7. Representation, Agency and Empowerment
Bérengére Marques-Pereira and Birte Siim

8. Social Capital – An Emerging Concept
Dietland Stolle with Jane Lewis

Index

Editorial Reviews

'Contested Concepts in Gender and Social Politics is a significant new book. The authors take seven key concepts - care, citizenship, social exclusion, contractualism, de-commodification, representation, social capital - and explore these through a gendered lens. They examine how these concepts have developed over time and locate them within different national contexts and policy debates. This is a major contribution to the theoretical and comparative literature on welfare states, written by some of the most original and challenging feminist theorists of social policy.'

Jane Millar