Introduction

Abstract

Researching Intimacy in Families is an incisive engagement with the subject of intimacy and kin relationships and the methods used to research family life and childhood. Families have been the focus of sociologically informed research for some considerable time. Recently, the field of inquiry has broadened to include our intimate relationships with those within and without our familial circle. This draws attention to the processes by which families are made and remade through everyday family practices and intimate interactions. In this book I take stock of contemporary debate and trace the academic background of family studies and childhood research. I examine the methodological frameworks and conceptual approaches that characterise the study of relationships and everyday life. Through this analytical approach I aim to bridge the gap between methodology handbooks (which provide practical guidance) and monographs (which typically advocate a single conceptual model). As such, this book is both a useful resource for researchers working in the fields of families and relationships and a platform from which to develop new directions and/or methods of data collection in studies of relational life.