“Lives of their own” free from violence: Individualization and child-welfare interventions

Abstract

The manner in which relationships within the family are becoming increasingly individualized is regarded by leading social theorists as a defining feature of late-modern societies (Beck 1992; Beck and Beck-Gernsheim 2002; Giddens 1991, 1994a). Women, men, and children, it is argued, are no longer bound to traditional definitions of roles and duties based on hierarchies of age, gender, and class, but rather are increasingly seeking autonomy and ways of having “lives of their own” within the family group. The extent to which families are becoming more democratic and lifestyles and personhood more chosen is contested (Jamieson 1998). But a striking feature of individualization theory and debates is the rather narrow perspective that is taken, as the focus is restricted to issues such as men and women’s changing roles, balancing careers and relationship responsibilities, new kinds of decision making and identity politics about sexuality, having children, who does the housework, and so on. Deeper understandings of the complex moral, emotional, and practical dynamics of intrafamilial relationships have been produced through important work on divorce and the meanings and consequences of family “breakdown” for all family members (Smart and Neale 1999), and on the provision and ethics of care within families (Williams 2004). But little attention has been given to the relationship between individualization and state intervention into the family in other key areas, such as where children are either known to be or are suspected of being at risk of abuse and neglect.