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    Practices and perceptions of living apart together

    Duncan, S. and Phillips, M. and Carter, J. and Roseneil, Sasha and Stoilova, Mariya (2014) Practices and perceptions of living apart together. Family Science 5 (1), pp. 1-10. ISSN 1942-4620.

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    Abstract

    This paper examines how people living apart together (LATs) maintain their relationships, and describes how they view this living arrangement. It draws on a 2011 survey on living apart together (LAT) in Britain, supplemented by qualitative interviewing. Most LATs in Britain live near to their partners, and have frequent contact with them. At the same time most see LAT in terms of a monogamous, committed couple, where marriage remains a strong normative reference point, and see living apart as not much different from co-residence in terms of risk, emotional security, or closeness. Many see themselves living together in the future. However, LAT does appear to make difference to patterns of care between partners. In addition, LATs report advantages in terms of autonomy and flexibility. The paper concludes that LAT allows individuals some freedom to manoeuvre in balancing the demands of life circumstances and personal needs with those of an intimate relationship, but that practices of living apart together do not, in general, represent a radical departure from the norms of contemporary coupledom, except for that which expects couples to cohabit.

    Metadata

    Item Type: Article
    Keyword(s) / Subject(s): Living apart together, couples, intimate relationships, family practices, Britain
    School: Birkbeck Faculties and Schools > Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences > School of Social Sciences
    Research Centres and Institutes: Mapping Maternal Subjectivities, Identities and Ethics (MAMSIE), Gender and Sexuality, Birkbeck (BiGS), Social Research, Birkbeck Institute for (BISR)
    Depositing User: Administrator
    Date Deposited: 19 Jun 2014 13:48
    Last Modified: 02 Aug 2023 17:11
    URI: https://eprints.bbk.ac.uk/id/eprint/9816

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