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Living apart relationships in contemporary Europe: accounts of togetherness and apartness

Stoilova, Mariya and Roseneil, Sasha and Crowhurst, Isabel and Hellesund, T. and Santos, A.C. (2014) Living apart relationships in contemporary Europe: accounts of togetherness and apartness. Sociology 48 (6), pp. 1075-1091. ISSN 0038-0385.

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Official URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0038038514523697

Abstract

Drawing on a European cross-national biographical-narrative study of intimate life, this article discusses the complexity of experiences of ‘togetherness’ and ‘apartness’ amongst people in living apart relationships. We explore the five main ways in which interviewees spoke about and understood their current living apart relationships (as: chosen; temporary; transitional; undecided; and unrecognisable), which we argue shows the need for a broader conceptualisation of this form of intimate relationship than is suggested by the established notion of ‘living apart together’. The article points to interviewees’ varying experiences of receiving or being denied recognition and acceptance by others as belonging to a couple, as well as to their differing degrees of desire for, or rebellion against, expectations that living apart relationships should ‘progress’ towards cohabitation.

Item Type: Article
Keyword(s) / Subject(s): biographical-narrative interviews, cohabitation, couple relationship, intimacy, living apart together, recognition
School or Research Centre: Birkbeck Schools and Research Centres > School of Social Sciences, History and Philosophy > Psychosocial Studies
Depositing User: Administrator
Date Deposited: 02 Apr 2014 14:08
Last Modified: 31 Mar 2015 23:11
URI: http://eprints.bbk.ac.uk/id/eprint/9511

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