Overview
- Contests the idea that friendship is a purely private relationship in late modern societies and
- argues an empirical and theoretical case for friendships in public settings
- Examines the nature of work friendships and describes the complex overlap between the
- personal and public characteristics of work friendships
- Explores why friendship makes us happy and what it can contribute to our public lives
Part of the book series: Palgrave Macmillan Studies in Family and Intimate Life (PSFL)
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Table of contents (10 chapters)
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Front Matter
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Back Matter
Keywords
About this book
This book is about friendships in public settings today. Wilkinson examines friendships in the public settings of neighbourhoods, civil society and at work. Identifying the unique relevance which public friendships have to contemporary social problems, the chapters cover a range of topics, including work-life balance, women’s ‘double burden’ and their leisure deficit, and contemporary neighbouring initiatives. Wilkinson shows how ‘friendship time’ at work provides solutions to new social problems including privacy: with the modern workplace being hyper-public and emphasizing visibility, monitoring and 24/7 availability, friendship’s combination of voluntarism and trust enable a private refuge even in an open-plan office. The book also explores the way in which friendships in public settings like work and neighbourhood provide community to those in society who are more likely to be excluded from private familial intimacy.
The Public Life of Friendship will be of interest to students and scholars across a range of social science disciplines with an interest in friendship and the sociology of personal life.
Authors and Affiliations
About the author
Jennifer Wilkinson is Senior Lecturer in Sociology, University of Sydney, Australia.
Bibliographic Information
Book Title: The Public Life of Friendship
Book Subtitle: Work, Neighbourhood and Civil Society
Authors: Jennifer Wilkinson
Series Title: Palgrave Macmillan Studies in Family and Intimate Life
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-03161-9
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan Cham
eBook Packages: Social Sciences, Social Sciences (R0)
Copyright Information: The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2019
Hardcover ISBN: 978-3-030-03160-2Published: 08 February 2019
eBook ISBN: 978-3-030-03161-9Published: 09 January 2019
Series ISSN: 2731-6440
Series E-ISSN: 2731-6459
Edition Number: 1
Number of Pages: VIII, 266
Topics: Sociology of Family, Youth and Aging, Childhood, Adolescence and Society, Sociology of Work