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Lesley Anne Bleakney
Doctoral student in sociology and a visiting graduate fellow at MARIAL

Project Title:
The Comparative Family Narrative Project

This study will investigate how changing economic conditions and work life shape the way families frame their sense of themselves moving through time.
A cross-national study of family history narratives, including the USA, Germany, and Luxembourg, aims at identifying differences in (a) the mode of reproduction of a family system; (b) how local conditions and histories have allowed families to position themselves in relation to the past, the present and the future; (c) the local economic and job outlook; and (d) local notions of work-family relations.

While the function of family narrative is everywhere to produce a stable family identity over time, we aim to study how the positioning of families under distinct historical, social, and economic conditions affects content and shape of these narratives. Of particular interest to us is the role and status of work outlook or/and career aspiration in each family and its relation to family life and family identity.  The three societies chosen for this project suggest a fascinating set of contrasts. Thus the study will provide extremely important data for a theory of family narratives and their role in shaping identity- both of families and their individual members.