Intimate Citizenship: Private Decisions and Public DialoguesSolo parenting, in vitro fertilization, surrogate mothers, gay and lesbian families, cloning and the prospect of designer babies, Viagra and the morning-after pill, HIV/AIDS, the global porn industry, on-line dating services, virtual sex--whether for better of worse, our intimate lives are in the throes of dramatic change. In this thought-provoking study, sociologist Ken Plummer examines the transformations taking place in the realm of intimacy and the conflicts--the intimate troubles --to which these changes constantly give rise. In surveying the intimate possibilities now available to us and the issues swirling around them, Plummer focuses especially on the overlap of public and private. Increasingly, our most private decisions are bound up with public institutions such as legal codes, the medical system, or the media. What impact does the increasingly public character of personal life have on our sense of ourselves and on how we view our own intimate choices? To navigate our way through a world in which people s private lives are so often subject to public scrutiny and debate, and in which the public sphere is increasingly pluralized and contested, we must broaden our understanding of what it means to be a citizen. Through the idea of "intimate citizenship," Plummer sets an important agenda for the years to come. |
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What dangers threaten your children when they surf the Internet? Should one
arrange financial matters through cyberspace? Is software piracy the same as
theft? Is digital surveillance of employees morally acceptable? What should we
do if ...
Last July, Italian police recalled that up to three dozen prostitutes had been
shipped to Germany to sell their children to wealthy western couples. Guardian,
December 9, 2000 “Sale of Babies on Internet to Be Outlawed” The sale of
babies on ...
... that in 2002 there were roughly 600 million Internet users across the world, and
that by 2005 there will be well over abillion.7Specific predictions are hazardous,
but we are obviously talking about a lot. If we guess—perhaps rather modestly?
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Contents
3 | |
17 | |
3 Culture Wars and Contested Intimacies | 33 |
4 The New Theories of Citizenship | 49 |
5 Public Intimacies Private Citizens | 67 |
6 Dialogic Citizenship | 84 |
7 Stories and the Grounded Moralities of Everyday Life | 95 |
8 Globalizing Intimate Citizenship | 117 |
9 The Intimate Citizenship Project | 139 |
Notes | 147 |
Bibliography | 163 |
Index of Names | 179 |
Subject Index | 183 |