Week 12 - Friendships and the Culture of Intimacy

Question 1

Who are the main authors week 12 readings on Friendship and the Culture of Intimacy?

Answer 1

1. Davies K 2011.
2. Roseniel, S & Budgeon, S 2004

Question 2

What does Roseniel, S & Budgeon, S 2004 discuss?

Answer 2

• 1. To understand the current state of intimacy and care, the concept of ‘family’ and ‘heterosexuality should be decentralised.
• 2. A criticism of family and gender is theorised in sociology.
• 3. A focus on individuals not living with a partner.
• 4. The centring of friendships and decentralising of sexual relationships.

Question 3

According to Caine (2008), how are friendships seen today? What is the friendship importance equivalent to?

Answer 3

• Today, friendships seen as an alternative to family, as important as mental health, subject to media attention. (Caine, 2008)

Question 4

According to Rosneil and Budgeon (2004) early to mid twentieth century social theorists did not view friendship as significant for social life.

Why was this the case?

2 Answers.

Answer 4

A) classical theorists saw modernity (urbanisation and bureaucraticisation) as incompatible with intimacy. For example, George Simmel saw deep friendships as incompatible with the ‘individualised, specialised and competitive’ culture of modernity (in Ritzer and Goodwin, 2004).

B) There was (and is) a preoccupation heterorelationality in sociology and friendships (and other relationships outside the family) ‘decentre the primary significance that is commonly granted to sexual partnerships and mount a challenge to the privileging of conjugal relationships in research on intimacy’ (Rosneil and Budgeon, 2004; 138).

Question 5

Elaborate “friendships can be a social glue”.

Who theorised this concept?

Answer 5

Ray Phahl (2000):

friendship can be a social glue:

• 1) friends are increasingly relied on for social support
• 2) increasing expectations about the emotional quality of our friendships.

Question 6

Explain the relevance of Giddens (1991) pure relationship and friendships.

Answer 6

Giddens (1991) argues that friendships are examples of pure relationships because they only continue as long as both parties are satisfied (traditional and obligation are less likely to get in the way, as they do in family and romantic relationships).

Question 7

Giddens (1991) thinks that the pure relationship ideal comes from the friendships women have had. Why?

Answer 7

Women were considered emotionally closer and are constituted by mutual disclosure.

Question 8

“friendship is non-threatening in an individualised world”

Who theorised this?

Answer 8

Beck and Beck-Gernsheim (1995):

Question 9

Who theorises this?

“friendships over family tends to be limited in time”

elaborate on this concept

Answer 9

Allen (1996, 2008)

Friendships are limited by social factors such as domestic obligation.

Question 10

Phal (2000), suggests that friendships can be as difficult to end as the family. How does this relate to the pure relationship?

Answer 10

Friendships may not be a ‘pure relationship’ as theorised by Giddens (1992).

This is because people come to rely on friend to provide support and confirmation of their enduring identities.

Question 11

Bottero (2005) discusses ‘homophily’. What is it?

Answer 11

We tend to form friendships with those who are from similar social and geographical positions.

Question 12

What does who theorises about the impact of technology on friendships?

Answer 12

Sherry Turkle.

Question 13

What are the 5 points or concepts developed by Sherry Turkle:

Answer 13

1. Technology has become the architect of our intimacy
2. We’re lonely but afraid of the demands of intimacy so we turn to technology that we use to control our intimacies (so that we have just the right amount)
3. We clean up rich, messy and demanding relationships with technology and this depletes our intimacies
4. To overcome isolation we connect but if we aren’t able to be alone then we will feel more lonely and we are more likely to use superficial connections to make us feel better
5. The good news: we can change

Question 14

Weeks et al (2001) and Roseniel (2000a) draws attention to the ‘blurring of boundaries’ and the movement between friendship and sexual relationships.

Elaborate on this point.

Answer 14

1. friendship and sexual relationships which often characterizes contemporary lesbian and gay intimacies.
2. Friends become lovers, lovers become friends, and many have multiple sexual partners of varying degrees of commitment (and none).
3. Moreover, an individual’s ‘significant other’ may not be someone with whom she or he has a sexual relationship.

Question 15

What does Anthony Gidden’s (1992) argument about the ‘transformation of intimacy’ and Back and Elisabeth Beck-Gernshiem’s (1995, 2002) work on the changing meanings in practice of love and family relationship suggest about the process of the contemporary world?

Answer 15

The contemporary world process of individualization and detraditionalization and increased self-reflexivity are opening up new possibilities and expectations of on heterosexual relationships.

Question 16

Elaborate on Gidden’s (1992) ‘transformation of intimacy’

(3 concepts)

Answer 16

1. He refers to the changing nature of marriages such as the emergence of ‘pure relationships’ characterized by ‘confluent love’
2. Such concepts have developed into a ‘plastic sexuality’ where people are being freed from the ‘needs of reproduction.
3. Lesbians and gay men are ‘pioneers’ in the ‘pure relationship’ and plastic sexuality.

Question 17

What does Beck and Berk-Gernshiem (2002) argue in the context of family and relationships.

Answer 17

1. The ethic of individual self-fulfillment and achievement is the most powerful in current modern society
2. Individuals now believe the desire to be ‘a deciding, shaping human beings who aspire to be the author of their own life.
3. Individual self-fulfillment is having a significant change in the way family is being shared in modern times.
4. The concept of the ‘family’ has turned from a ‘given’ to a ‘matter of choice’

Question 18

Roseneil and Budgeon conclude that individuals living individualised existances are choosing to centre their personal lives around friendship, and toe decentre sexual partnerships which challenge hetero-relational social order.

How does work as a process?

(3 Points)

Answer 18

1. Care and support flow between individuals with no biological, legal or social recognised ties to each other.
2. Domestic space is reconfigured, its association to the nuclear family or conjugal couple is challenged
3. The non-normative culture of intimacy and care emerge which are not seen as radical.

Question 19

What does Katherine Davies consider in her work?

Answer 19

1. The significance of friendship for personal life
2. The sociological exploration of friendship and the complexities ranging from of defining ‘friends’ to addressing the concept of friendships in the changing social world.
3. The idea friendships are always positive through ‘choice’
4. The fundamentally different forms of relationship with kin.

Question 20

Who draws attention to this term ‘personal community’?

What does it mean?

+ points for years

Answer 20

Liz Spencer and Ray Pahl (2006).

‘Personal community’ denotes people’s network of friends and associate’

Question 21

What does Davies, K (2011) say about the definition of ‘friendship’?

Answer 21

1. The term ‘friendship’ is difficult to define.
2. There are various ‘types’ of friends in your life with diverse complex friendships.
3. Terms like ‘friend’, ‘family member’, ‘colleague’, ‘nieghbour’ or ‘acqauntance’ are often blurred.
4. The term ‘personal community’ goes around this problem of applying definitive categories.

Question 22

According to who, what are ‘repertoires’?

Answer 22

According to Spencer and Pahl (2006), ‘repertoires’ show:

1. the different types of friends people have in their ‘personal communities’ and
2. the ‘constellation of friendships’ people have (the range of relationships which make up the personal community)

Question 23

What example does Spencer and Pahl (2006) provide to explain the range of complexity, from the very simple to the highly complex?

(4 Examples)

Answer 23

1. ‘Associates friends’: Sharing a common activity such as someone you sit next to in class. The friendship does not continue outside those parameters.
2. ‘Fun friends’: More complex than ‘associate friends’, but still a simple friendship as it does not extend beyond the fun norms of society.
3. ‘Comforter’: Those who provide emotional support.
4. ‘Soulmates’: The most complex. Friends that confide, provide emotional support and help each other and also having fun.

Question 24

What does Davies, K (2011) argue in regards to friendships and personal communities within the context of new technologies?

(2 Points)

Answer 24

Davies (2011) sugguests:

1. that technologies appear to he enhancing ties which still require face-to-face contact.
2. technologies are creating new ways of ‘doing’ friendship which supplement, rather than replace, existing practices of friendships.

Question 25

Explain the “individualization thesis” by Beck & Beck-Gershiem (1995)

Answer 25

1. Also known as the “de-traditionalisation thesis”
2. Society with traditions and social rules are understood to be on the decline.
3. This includes the way family relationships prescribe roles.
4. The role of individual choice in the way we do relationships is becoming increasingly significant.

Question 26

What is the relevant of Beck & Beck-Gershiem (1995) of the individualization thesis on friendships and intimacy?

Answer 26

Individual choice has made the idea of friendships an increasingly significant relationship which captures the ‘zeigeist’ (the spirit of the times).

Question 27

In Daives, K (2011) article, what does Giddens (1991) argue in relations to the discussion of the ‘pure relationship’ in the context of friendships?

Answer 27

1. Friendships capture the voluntarism and democracy of the pure relationship.
2. Friendships are relational as the rewards of the friendship is the relationship in itself.
3. Distinct from kinship relationship, a friendship remains as long as the sentiments of closeness are reciprocated for its own sake.
4. Modern friendships can be typified as the pure relationship as it survives as long as both parties derive enough satisfaction from it.

Question 28

These three theorists (1. Who?) argue that in some non-heterosexuals’ friends can take on some functions traditionally performed by family members.

2. What does this do traditional ties?
3. Why do some non-heterosexual communities describe their friends as ‘family’?

Answer 28

1. Jeffrey Weeks, Brian Heaphy and Catherine Donovan (2001)
2. Chosen ties are seen to replace traditional ties in some contexts
3. Due to their exclusion from heterosexual institutions of family and marriage, the experience of support derives from friendships, rather than the traditional family;

Question 29

According to who, argues that friendships are in fact limited in choice?

Answer 29

Graham Allen (1996)

Question 30

What does Graham Allen (1996) mean by the ‘limits of choice in friendship’?

Answer 30

1. Friendships are not just freely chosen
2. They are developed in a wider network of people’s lives.
3. Friendships are governed by social factors, as well as a choice.
4. Therefore, there is limited control of ‘choice’ as they are constrained by aspects of social organization

Question 31

According to Miller McPherson, Lynn Smith-Lovin and James Cook (2001), what are the main causal factors of homophily?

Answer 31

1. Geographical distance (key aspect)
2. Organizations we belong to, such as occupational, family and informal roles