Working title of dissertation: Net Curtains and Closed Doors: Public and Private Lives in Dublin
Based on fieldwork in Dublin from 9/93-3/95, I deal with expanding our understanding of the domains of public life and private relations. I argue that public and private cannot be usefully understood as a dichotomy; rather, it is a matter of a continuum of social relationships. Through an examination of the lives of Dublin working-class and middle-class families, and with a Limerick sample of both rural and urban women, I show that there are gradations of public and private in most interactions. Secondarily, I describe working class family life in Dublin, something which has not been done ethnographically since the late 1940s. In the various chapters, I discuss marital relationships, child-rearing, understandings regarding motherhood and fatherhood, work relationships, friendships, and Irish emotional styles -- all of these demonstrate the messiness of everyday life and the complex intermingling of public and private domains. The research was partly supported by a Fulbright and by the University of California-San Diego.
It's rather hard to classify my dissertation, as it deals with social relationships, cultural understandings, and psychological issues. If pressed, though, I'd say it's social anthropology of a sort.
Elizabeth A. Throop, Department of Anthropology, University of
California-San Diego
ethroop@weber.ucsd.edu