Introduction

This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book analyzes the common cultural framework of the interviewees’ identities in terms of Durkheim’s individualism. The claim that both markets and families provide “spontaneous” order, arising – without conscious effort – from the actions of individuals, is even more shadowy than the identities of the agents themselves in neo-liberal theory. The book analyzes the claim that individualism leads to a culture of “narcissism”, by examining women’s descriptions of their child care arrangements. It analyzes the specifically individualistic features of this order, through an examination of how interviewees use interpretative repertoires to account for the variety in their circumstances.