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Speech Delivered at National Seminar on Family Youth and Futures, ORGANISED BY THE Centre for Future Studies, Gandhigram Rural Institute Deemed University , on 7 Feb 2010
R. KUMARAN Assistant Professor Department of Sociology Gandhigram Rural Institute Deemed University
Centrality of Family
Changing Family
Joint Family Agrarian Society Nuclear Family Industrial Society Single Parent Family- Post- Industrial Society
Family is the funnel into which the state and media push their desired image of citizen or consumer It is the last reducible unit for many social science research
Youth perception has been changing Family is seen as repressive It all started in
Industrial Revolution Freudian Psychoanalysis Marxism
Family has suddenly moved away from being protective to repressive faster as youth earn earlier these days
The premium on individual freedom has changed the critical threshold
Agrarian Society- All were at home Industrial Society- Father Left Home for work Late-Industrial Society Mother and Father Left home for work home Families became Week-end (or Weakened) Families Soon Week-end families are replaced by Summer-Vacation Families
Outside families
Youth are now exposed to the vagaries of life with out protection and comfort of families Building and breaking relationships are to be handled alone So are the stresses and joys to be experienced alone
Consumer industries that were wary of familial ties, target the unguarded youth The fast earning youth now becomes a target for selling everything from objects to experiences offered hitherto free by families Now banks pay fees rather than fathers TV and internet tells more about values than parents
The very forces (technologies) that undermined familial ties are now offering scope for reestablishing ties Now families though distanced can be accessed
Mobile phone, broadband internet, webcam, all keep members of the family together virtually But it i
Family Inevitable?
The family as unconditional resource is no longer accessed as it involves obligations All that family offered is offered elsewhere, may be for a price but without obligations Families are becoming more, transitory, contractual and functional in nature
Future?
This phase, may be viewed positively as heralding the true birth of absolute individual But can we trust the subsisting institution? Are they adequately substituting? What about the reassertion of caste-based religion-based collectivities? Will families to reassert themselves?