Introduction

The Centre for Research on Families and Relationships (CRFR) is committed to building links between academic research, policy and practice. The ideas behind this book emerged from ongoing discussions about furthering links across organisations and agencies concerned with policy and practice, research, and the exploration of families more generally. Given the range of research on families and relationships that we at CRFR and other colleagues are engaged in we were keen to disseminate work as widely as possible. The theme of boundaries offers one way to capture the fluidity of ‘families and relationships’ and the concept of boundary work to embed such conceptualisations within the practical realities of ‘doing family and relationships’, family practices and practices of intimacy and friendship. In compiling this book we have focused on concepts and findings we hope will be of interest to policymakers, researchers and those studying the diverse and shifting nature of family life.

Boundaries as a conceptual device

Boundaries are certainly not new ways to understand families and relationships. Indeed, as the chapters by Hill (Chapter Five) and by Sweeting and Seaman (Chapter Six) note, the concept is used within family systems theory and within family therapy: boundaries are seen as essential to good family functioning. However, these authors also warn that boundaries are concepts imposed by adults (whether academics or family practitioners) and their traditional use marginalises the agency of children in challenging boundaries and constructing their own meaningful bridges across domains. These limits pose challenges to the sociologies of families and relationships of both a methodological and conceptual nature.

Other chapters, too, draw on traditional notions of boundaries, for example Allan (Chapter Thirteen) describes how, for the most part, the boundaries between familial relationships and friendships remain quite clear, while admitting there is greater flexibility in these boundaries in contemporary society. Jamieson (Chapter Eleven) also highlights how family theory has worked with the notion of exclusionary boundaries in its conceptualisation of families and also of intimacy. On the one hand, she challenges such theorising, suggesting that practices of intimacy do not necessarily demarcate intimate relationships from communal activity. she makes us aware that exclusionary practices within familial and other personal relationships persist, sometimes harbouring violence and creating hierarchies.