Melanie Heath

A poignant account of everyday polygamy and what its regulation reveals about who is viewed as an "Other" In the past thirty years, polygamy has become a flashpoint of conflict as Western governments attempt to regulate certain cultural and religious practices that challenge seemingly central principles of family and justice. In Forbidden Intimacies, Melanie Heath comparatively investigates the regulation of polygamy in the United States, Canada, France, and Mayotte. Drawing on a wealth of ethnographic and archival sources, Heath uncovers the ways in which intimacies framed as "other" and "offensive" serve to define the very limits of Western tolerance. These regulation efforts, counterintuitively, allow the flourishing of polygamies on the ground. The case studies illustrate a continuum of justice, in which some groups, like white fundamentalist Mormons in the U.S., organize to fight against the prohibition of their families' existence, whereas African migrants in France face racialized discrimination in addition to rigid migration policies. The matrix of legal and social contexts, informed by gender, race, sexuality, and class, shapes the everyday experiences of these relationships. Heath uses the term "labyrinthine love" to conceptualize the complex ways individuals negotiate different kinds of relationships, ranging from romantic to coercive. What unites these families is the secrecy in which they must operate. As government intervention erodes their abilities to secure housing, welfare, work, and even protection from abuse, Heath exposes the huge variety of intimacies, and the power they hold to challenge heteronormative, Western ideals of love.

Polygamies at the Limits of Western Tolerance

Forbidden Intimacies

The meaning and significance of the institution of marriage has engendered angry and boisterous battles across the United States. This book uncovers broad cultural anxieties that fuel on-the-ground practices to reinforce a boundary of heterosexual marriage, questioning why marriage has become an issue of pervasive national preoccupation and anxiety.

The Campaign to Promote Marriage in America

One Marriage Under God

Janice D. Aurini

Stephanie Howells

This book will support you through each milestone of your research project with step-by-step instructions to doing qualitative research. Whatever type of data or data collection method you use, it will help you to navigate the nuts and bolts of qualitative research, from forming your research question to effectively writing up. Your roadmap and toolbox all in one, it helps you choose the best research tools for your project while managing any challenges you might encounter along the way. It includes: · Guidance on putting different research designs into practice, including using technology for interviews, data management, and unobtrusive research · Practical mapping tools, including checklists and quick tips · Online case studies and further reading to deepen your knowledge and expand your bibliography · Advice from experts on how to design and implement excellent qualitative research, including considerations of ethical issues. This book is the perfect companion for social sciences students carrying out their first qualitative research project.

The How To of Qualitative Research

Bandana Purkayastha

Akosua K. Darkwah

Josephine A. Beoku-Betts

"Global Feminist Autoethnographies uses feminist methods to reflect on our experiences of precarities as tenured faculty, faculty on temporary contracts, and graduate students during COVID-19. This book bears witness to the displacements, disruptions, and distress experienced by women in different locations in academia. The authors document their experiences arising within academia and beyond it, gathering stories from across the globe-Australia, Canada, Ghana, Finland, India, Norway, South Africa, United Kingdom, United States along with transnational engagements with Bolivia, Iran, Nepal, and Taiwan. In an era where the older rules about work and family related to our survival, wellbeing, and dignity are rapidly being transformed, this book shows that distress and traumas are emerging across the divides between the global North and South, depending on the intersecting structures that have affected each of us. It documents our distress and trauma and how we have worked to lift each other up amidst severe precarities. A global co-written project, this book shows how we are moving to decolonize our scholarship. It will be of interest to an interdisciplinary array of scholars in the areas of intersectionality, gender, family, race, sexuality, migration, and global and transnational sociology"--

Displacements and Disruptions

Global Feminist Autoethnographies During COVID-19

The meaning and significance of the institution of marriage has engendered angry and boisterous battles across the United States. In this timely and extensive study of marriage politics, Melanie Heath uncovers broad cultural anxieties that fuel on-the-ground practices to reinforce a boundary of heterosexual marriage, questioning why marriage has become an issue of pervasive national preoccupation and anxiety. From marriage workshops for the general public to relationship classes for welfare recipients to marriage education in high school classrooms,One Marriage Under Godexplores the impact of policies that seek to re-institutionalize heterosexual marriage in American society.

Melanie Heath

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