Stories of Parents Who Climb Emily Coates a Thesis Submitted In
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A Fine Balance: Stories of parents who climb Emily Coates A thesis submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Buckinghamshire New University Brunel University Supervisors: Professor Barbara Humberstone Dr Ben Clayton Director of research: Professor Paul Springer January, 2012 This copy of the thesis has been supplied on condition that anyone who consults it is understood to recognise that its copyright rests with its author under the terms of the United Kingdom Copyright Acts. No quotation from the thesis and no information derived from it may be published without proper acknowledgement. Abstract The thesis is based on research that uses a post-structural narrative or storied approach to examine the experiences of parents who have or continue to rock climb. It focuses on the family, leisure and working lives of seven heterosexual couples with children in the UK. The work of Michel Foucault provides the theoretical framework. In Part One of the thesis his earlier work on discourses, knowledge and discipline are used to analyse the subjects that are formed by discourses on parenting and climbing. This part of the thesis is concluded by bringing these two fields together through examining the notions of individual parental and family leisure and the notions of risk and responsibility. Foucault’s later work on experiences and the technologies of self is used in the analysis and discussion of the data in the third part of the thesis. Data for this thesis were collected through in-depth narrative interviews with both partners in the seven couples, six of these couples were interviewed twice, and the interviews were supported by participant observation. Influenced by post-structuralism and the ethical dilemma of maintaining the anonymity of both partners in a couple, fictional writing strategies were used to represent the data in the form of five short stories. These stories and the resulting discussion highlight the complexity of parents’ everyday lives as they negotiate time and different life-worlds in the early years of parenthood. Couples’ experiences were often quite different and any one individual’s experience could be contradictory. Whilst parenting did constrain climbing commitment, many of the mothers and fathers used creative practices to maintain their commitment, with some actively critiquing some of the discourses of intensive and gendered parenting, which disciplines parents (and especially mothers) to sacrifice their own time for their children. Findings from this thesis suggest that parenting remains gendered, mothers were more likely to perceive themselves as having more responsibility (and thus less likely to take risks) and feel guilty about sacrificing time with children for themselves. However, many of the parents did actively negotiate to share parenting, and many of the fathers also were less willing to take risks with the increased responsibility that came with fatherhood. Parenting was shown to be relational, in that fathers and mothers supported each other’s maintenance of leisure, working and family spaces. Although the parents’ educational, working and age identities cannot be ignored, it is possible that when both parents are committed to the same activity such as climbing that they are more likely to maintain equitable gendered relations. Finally, in terms of family leisure, this research showed that some parents did adopt a child-centred approach to their ‘free-time’ and were more likely to perceive their children as ‘at risk.’ However, many of the regular climbers were impacted by their identities as climbers, and saw taking children into ‘risk spaces’ as potentially beneficial, and climbing as a family activity that was used to pass down their own family values (not necessarily ‘expert derived’ ones). In this way, parents construct themselves as ethical beings and individualise ‘universal’ moral codes. Emily Coates Buckinghamshire New University i Dedication This thesis is dedicated to my family- To those still with me who have provided me unlimited support and had to listen to me talk about my research for the last three years, and to those who have gone who would have been proud of me whether I finished it or not! Emily Coates Buckinghamshire New University ii Acknowledgments There are so many people to whom I owe an enormous amount of gratitude, and without whom this thesis would not have been possible, so to name a few: My brilliant supervisors-Barbara and Ben, who always had their doors open, and most of all for guiding me and encouraging me to find my own path! I would also like to thank Ina (and Robert), Zoe, Alan, Laura and everyone else at Bucks, and Chris, Alex and Ali at Loughborough who collectively shared offices, provided intellectual? stimulation and even a place to stay when I needed it. I am of course greatly indebted to the parents who participated in this research, who welcomed me into their homes, showed me photo albums of their lives and whose stories inspired me, and kept me writing. When I started my PhD I was determined to treat it like a job, to keep the rest of my life going, this was, of course, not always possible, but I did my best, and I would like to thank the following for keeping me sane through the harder times, and especially after I broke my ankle. To Mozzie, Merv, Ozzy, Jen (and Matt), Gabalar, Mullen, Dr Morris and Sin for cooking for me, taking me out, distracting me and making me laugh. To the Wins-church group for so many fun weekends, and especially for the Mich-olympics and Glastonbury. To the climbers (especially Victoria) for stopping me working on many Wednesday afternoons and weekends. To Caroline and Louis for all the coffee breaks, and to Grandpa (and Grandma) Brown for reading my thesis (and telling me you enjoyed it?)-any mistakes are mine not yours! My final thanks go to people who have helped and encouraged me more than they can ever know. I would not be where I am without you. To Mum for always picking up the phone and telling me to stop when I needed to be told, to Dad for the ‘travel’ support and Sam for distracting me. To Tom for steak knives and jalapenos. Lo, the sister I never had, thank you for helping me around London on one leg and providing so much emotional support over the last year. To Tory, I don’t know how I can express my gratitude enough-but thank you for reading countless drafts and for listening to my worries. Finally to Rich, thank you for laughing at me on my ‘this is rubbish’ days, for seeing the end before I did, and most importantly for introducing me to climbing. Emily Coates Buckinghamshire New University iii Table of Contents Abstract i Dedication ii Acknowledgements iii Contents iv Glossary vii Chapter one: Introduction, outlining the thesis and theory p1 1.1. Rationale and aims of the thesis p1 1.2. Reading the thesis through a Foucauldian approach to identity(ies) p3 1.3. Disciplining bodies p5 1.3.1 Discourse p5 1.3.2 Power, knowledge and the body p6 1.3.2.1 Technologies of discipline p8 1.4. Technologies of self p11 1.5. Feminism and Foucault: Critiques and convergences p14 1.6. Thesis structure using Foucault p15 Part one: Literature Review Chapter Two: Discourses of parenthood p20 2.1. The traditional scenario p21 2.1.1 Intensive parenting p21 2.1.2. Gendered parenting p28 2.1.2.1. Mothers as primary caregivers p28 2.1.2.2. Fathers as providers p33 2.2. Alternative Discourses p36 2.2.1. Mothers in paid work p37 2.2.2. Involved fathers p40 2.2.3. Shared but still intensive parenting p44 2.2.4. The heterosexual family p45 2.3. Chapter summary p46 Chapter Three: Deconstructing a climbing identity p48 3.1. Climbing ethics (rules?) p49 3.1.1. Climbing historically p49 3.1.2 Contemporary climbing: Fragmentation and diversification p54 3.1.2.1 Styles of Ascent p56 3.2. Commitment p58 3.2.1. Consumption p58 3.2.2. Time, movement and progression p61 3.3. Discourses of risk p65 3.3.1 Societal discourses of risk p66 3.3.2. Climbing discourses of risk p69 3.4. Gender p72 3.4.1. Masculinities and femininities in climbing p73 3.4.2. Risk, discourses and gender p77 3.5. Discourses of class, age and race p79 3.5.1. Class p79 3.5.2. Invisibility of race p80 3.5.3. Ageing bodies’ p80 3.6. Chapter summary p81 Emily Coates Buckinghamshire New University iv Chapter four: Competing discourses: gendered climbing and parenting p84 4.1. Parenting and commitment to personal leisure p85 4.1.1. Commitment to climb OR mother p85 4.1.2. Mothers maintaining their leisure p88 4.1.3 Fathers and their personal sport and leisure p89 4.2. Family leisure and parenting p91 4.2.1. Family leisure: A mother’s obligation? p92 4.2.2. Fathers providing through sport and leisure p94 4.3. Responsibility, risk and parenthood p96 4.4. Chapter summary p101 Part Two: Locating and representing parents who climb Chapter Five: Methodology p104 5.1. Moments in research and the paradigms debate p105 5.1.1. Research as science: Positivism and post-positivism p106 5.1.2. The development of Interpretivism p108 5.1.3 New ways of knowing and telling p109 5.1.4. Summary of Philosophical underpinning p114 5.2. The research process: Confession and methods of data collection p115 5.2.1. Ethical decisions before going into the field p117 5.2.2. In the field: Interview as a narrative tool p118 5.2.3.