Relationality and Socio-Cultural Theories of Family Life

Abstract

In this chapter I propose to take some of the ideas I initially developed in Personal Life (Smart, 2007b) a little further. The purpose of that book was to start a process of reconceptualization of the sociology of relationships by putting a reflexive (social) self (Burkitt, 2008) into the centre of this approach as opposed to the isolated individual of theories of individualization. This means that here I first revisit the conceptual tools I worked with but then try to expand them while also taking account of my own dictum about trying to write relationships differently. This means that this chapter does not follow strictly the conventions of sociological writing (Gordon, 2008) and the reader will come across a number of ‘digressions’ en route.