Chuck Darrah
Blurring the Edges
of Work and Family: Tales from Silicon Valley
Wednesday, February 27, 2002, 3:00 p.m.
Figuring out how to balance the obligations of
work and family is central to many contemporary dual career,
middle class families. Although the pressures might be real,
the concepts of "work" and "family" imply
a clarity that is misleading. How, for example, does someone
know they are working? How do they count this or that as family?
Chuck Darrah, Jan English-Lueck and Jim Freeman explored these
questions during a two year ethnographic project conducted with
fourteen families in California's Silicon Valley region. Fieldwork
soon revealed that while talk about work and family assumed
clarity and consensus, practices were quite different. This
presentation explores how practices at work and in the family
are decomposed or chunked and then rearranged into different
contexts. Through this process work is not merely part of the
burden on family but its practices simultaneously provide resources
that family members draw upon to organize their lives, although
there are few solid guideposts forhow to proceed. The families
in this project searched for better practices (and narratives),
assessed them against their current practices, and experimented
with new arrangements. Children were both the objects of and
witnesses to these experiments.
---
Chuck Darrah is a cultural anthropologist and
co-founder of the Silicon Valley Cultures Project at San Jose
State University (www.sjsu.edu/depts/anthropology/svcp/). He
is currently on sabbatical leave to write two books. Remaking
Everyday Life: The Hidden Innovations of Silicon Valley
(with J. M. Freeman) examines everyday life in Silicon Valley
from an anthropological perspective. That research was partially
funded by the National Science Foundation. Families in the
Eye of the Storm: Dilemmas, Dreams and Strategies (with
J. A. English-Lueck and J. M. Freeman) will present an ethnographic
account of how dual career families integrate the demands of
work and family. Support for the research and book have been
provided by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.
---
The MARIAL Center
Emory West, 4th Floor, Room 415E
Open to the public
Refreshments will be served
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DIRECTIONS TO THE MARIAL CENTER
The MARIAL Center is located on the 4th floor of
the main building of Emory's Briarcliff Campus, 1256 Briarcliff
Rd. There is ample parking close to the building. Alternatively,
you may take the Emory shuttle (Route A). The shuttle leaves every
20 minutes from the main campus and is a 5- to 10-minute ride.
Route A shuttle stops are located at the corner of Asbury Circle
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of the B. Jones Center.
Please tell the receptionist at the front window
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