Intimate Labors ─ Cultures, Technologies, and the Politics of Care

Intimate labor is presented as a comprehensive category of investigation into gender, race, class, and other power relations in the context of global economic transformations. In chronicling the history of intimate labor in light of the rise and devolution of welfare states, women's workforce participation, family formation, the expansion of sex work into new industries, and the development of institutions for dependent people, this wide-ranging reader advances debates over the relationship between care and economy.

Boris and Parrenas bring together a collection of cutting-edge research on the many surprising ways we daily mix, split, and stir money with intimate life. Each encounter with the market raises subtle yet important issues for social theory and everyday life. We are all living it; this book helps us understand it."---Arlie Hochschild, author of The Managed Heart and The Commercialization of Intimate Life

This collection represents a stellar interdisciplinary contribution to research on work shaped by personal and emotional interaction. The essays embody the best quality of the work they explore---a thoughtful and discerning sensitivity to human need."---Nancy Folbre, author of Greed, Lust and Gender and The Invisible Heart

Eileen Boris is Hull Professor and Chair of Feminist Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara, where she directs the Center for Research on Women and Social Justice.
Rhacel Salazar Parrenas is Professor of American Civilization and Sociology at Brown University.