ABSTRACT
This conclusion presents some closing thoughts on concepts discussed in the preceding chapters of this book. The book highlights the impact of globalization from the perspective of the household and women's work, including kin work, and explores the continuing strength of ideologies of interdependence, of shared parenting, and reciprocity in intra-household relations. In this sense the ethnography supports critiques of generalized assumptions about globalization and gender that neglect class. The detailed ethnography of the work of mothering shows that only the study of 'past and present middle-class domesticities' provides the basis for a radical 'joint critique of labour, consumption and ideologies'. Hannah Arendt's differentiation between work and labour appears to be crucial, as it is through women's work as mothers, that class comes into being. There are stories that remain untold, especially those of unachieved desires for motherhood, of denied independence, aborted girls and failed marriages.
