SO CIAL SCIENCE
NEW IN PAPERBACK Stories of Extraordinary Journeys to Kinship
Domestic Workers of the World Unite!
JOSHUA GAMSON Foreword by MELISSA HARRIS-PERRY
A Global Movement for Dignity and Human Rights
Modern Families
JENNIFER N. FISH A personal, intimate account of the extraordinary ways that today’s families are being created From adoption and assisted reproduction, to gay and straight parents, coupled and single, and multi-parent families, the stories in Modern Families explain how individuals make unconventional families by accessing a broad range of technological, medical and legal choices that expand our definitions of parenting and kinship. These tales are deeply personal and political. The process of forming these families involved jumping tremendous hurdles—social conventions, legal and medical institutions—with heightened intention and inventiveness, within and across multiple inequities and privileges. Yet each of these families, however they came to be, shares the same universal joys that all families share. “A fascinating look at the remarkable range of experiences that is broadening the very idea of family” —Booklist. “Gamson’s description of the fierce love and determination that drove the creation of these families is candid and moving...[A] compelling book.” —Times Literary Supplement
JOSHUA GAMSON is Professor of Sociology at the University of San Francisco. He is the author of Claims to Fame: Celebrity in Contemporary America, Freaks Talk Back: Tabloid Talk Shows and Sexual Nonconformity, and The Fabulous Sylvester: The Legend, the Music, the Seventies in San Francisco.
DOMESTIC WORKERS OF THE WORLD UNITE! A Global Movement
for Dignity
From grassroots to global activism, the untold story of the world’s first domestic workers’ movement
Domestic workers exist on the margins of the world labor market. Maids, Jennifer N. Fish nannies, housekeepers, au pairs, and other care workers are most often ‘off the books,’ working for long hours and low pay. Many women who perform these jobs are migrants, and are oftentimes dependent upon their employers for room and board as well as their immigration status, creating an extremely vulnerable category of workers in the growing informal global economy. and Human Rights
Drawing on over a decade’s worth of research, plus interviews with a number of key movement leaders and domestic workers, Jennifer N. Fish presents the compelling stories of the pioneering women who, while struggling to fight for rights in their own countries, mobilized transnationally to enact change. Domestic Workers of the World Unite! chronicles how a group with so few resources could organize and act within the world’s most powerful international structures and give voice to the wider global plight of migrants, women, and informal workers. For anyone with a stake in international human and workers’ rights, this is a critical and inspiring model of civil society organizing. JENNIFER N. FISH is a sociologist and Professor and Chair of Women’s Studies at Old Dominion University. Her publications include Domestic Democracy: At Home in South Africa and Women’s Activism in South Africa: Working Across Divides.
MELISSA HARRIS-PERRY is Presidential Chair and Professor of Politics and International Affairs at Wake Forest University. March 2017 240 PAGES • 1 black & white illustration PAPER • 978-1-4798-6973-2 • $15.95T (£12.99) CLOTH • 978-1-4798-4246-9 SOCIOLOGY WWW.NYUPRESS.ORG
JULY 2017 320 PAGES PAPER • 978-1-4798-7793-5 • $30.00S (£24.99) CLOTH • 978-1-4798-4867-6 • $89.00X (£74.00) SOCIOLOGY • POLITICAL SCIENCE SPR I NG 2017 • NY U PRESS
25