Love Across Class - Softcover

Rose Butler (author) & Eve Vincent (author)

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0522880118 ISBN 13: 9780522880113

Publisher: Melbourne University Publishing, 2024

Synopsis

What does it mean to partner across class difference? This lucid and original book is the first to explore cross-class relationships in contemporary Australia, a society long-invested in the myth of egalitarianism. Drawing on in-depth interviews with people from a range of class and cultural backgrounds, Love Across Class brings to life the role of class in shaping people's childhoods, as well as the adult lives couples have built together. These stories move between the mundane, the profound and the taboo, as interviewees reckon openly with the pain, pleasure, humour and contradiction that comes with forming a close relationship across class. From escaping one's class background and confronting class dissimilarity, to managing money and negotiating holidays, this book offers rich accounts of personal worlds shared across class as they are lived. Yet not only do those interviewed reflect on the classed dynamics and tensions present in their relationships and family life, they also strive to grasp the concept of class itself. Conversations about class at home ultimately led to scrutiny of other areas of society deeply implicated in class experience in Australia. Education, work, migration and assets are all examined here amid the backdrop of growing inequality. For many, forming a relationship across class brought these stark realities to the fore. This engaging book will stimulate readers to think about class in intimate, emotional and society-wide terms.

About this title

About the Author

Rose Butler is a senior research fellow in Sociology in the Alfred Deakin Institute for Citizenship and Globalisation at Deakin University. She studies class, social mobility and inequality in Australia, with a focus on youth and family. She is the author of Class, Culture and Belonging in Rural Childhoods.

Eve Vincent is chair of Anthropology in the Macquarie School of Social Sciences. She is the author of Who Cares? Life on Welfare in Australia and ‘Against Native Title’: Conflict and Creativity in Outback Australia. Her writing has appeared in Sydney Review of Books, Griffith Review, Meanjin, Overland and Inside Story.

Edition details

• Publisher: Melbourne University Publishing
• Publication date: 2024
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0522880118
• ISBN 13: 9780522880113
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 240