This article draws on two qualitative studies on family care conducted in the US and the UK (between 2006 and 2008 the first one and between 2008 and 2011 the second one). It highlights convergences and divergences in the care practices of disabled and same-sex families, and illustrates the importance of shedding light on both the ‘bright’ and ‘dark’ sides of care. Adding a focus on different kinds of carers is not only important theoretically—to fill the gaps—but also strategically—to increase equality. Since difference and inequality co-determine one another, and since heterosexism and ableism will undoubtedly continue, the inclusion of diverse subjects into the discourse on ‘care’, the contextualization of care within situated interaction (Ridgeway and Correll, 2000), and the accent on the positive/energizing aspects of care might be the most effective way not only to achieve greater care related equality but also to increase the symbolic importance that people attach to this crucial social phenomenon.

The book examines the emotional, micro-situated dynamics of status inclusion/exclusion that people produce while caring for others by focusing, in particular, on non-conventional families. Grounded in empirical research that involves different types of care and family contexts, the book situates care within more inclusive and critical approaches while shedding light on its multiple and often overlooked meanings and implications. Engaging and accompanied by a useful methodological appendix, Doing Care, Doing Citizenship is essential reading for students and academics of sociology, psychology, social work and social theory. It will also be of interest to practitioners interested in developing their understanding of the relationship between care, emotions, social inclusion and citizenship.

Happiness is not a new subject of philosophical, anthropological and sociological inquiry; however, a growing body of interdisciplinary literature has been published on the so-called science and economics of happiness, especially in the last ten years. Up to the point that some scholars have described such phenomenon in terms of ‘happiness turn’ or, more critically, in terms of ‘happiness industry’: a growing literature provides instruction on how to be happy, drawing on a variety of disciplines, including economics, sociology, psychology, history and social policy, and happiness is both produced and consumed through such literature as a form of emotional, cultural and social capital. Whilst research on happiness has stimulated some critical reflection on potentially deceptive assumptions on happiness, it still tends to locate happiness in certain places, commonly described as the ‘primary happiness indicators’, and to be trapped, as a result, into conventional, dominant and somehow prescriptive definitions of happiness. The prescriptive power of happiness as the arguable object of human desire manifests itself in describing not only what we allegedly aim for but also what we should aim for. Moreover, there are significant terminological issues, ambivalences and grey areas implicit in the contemporary uses of the words ‘happiness’ and ‘happy’. Even assuming that happiness may be associated with ‘feeling good’, can we assume that unhappiness automatically involves ‘feeling bad’ and not rather ‘feeling good in a different way’ or simply wishing things were different? Based on Sarah Ahmed’s critique of the intrinsic conservative power of happiness and her proposal of ‘rethinking happiness as possibility’ (Ahmed, 2010), which involves giving voice to silenced subjects and introducing issues of difference and inequality into current debates about happiness, my contribution aims to open up a discussion on how more inclusive, reliable and situated definitions of happiness can be attained in contemporary societies. In other words, it aims to discuss the potential contribution of those ‘unequally entitled social actors’ who have been conventionally banished from the dominant discourse on happiness—such as feminists, sexual and ethnic minorities—and their capacity to produce alternative and unconventional forms of contextual and situational happiness which may be able to intersect and overcome traditional and misleading dichotomies. Using examples from my previous research on family care, my study intends to analyse the ‘possibility’ of happiness by situating it in empirical, phenomenological contexts and going beyond its categorical, ideological and dogmatic definitions.

Care is a fundamental component of people’s life, with significant implications in terms of status and power dimensions, social justice, equality and social change. Nevertheless, care related policies tend to be defined in neutral terms, reinforcing inequalities based on gender, class, race/ethnicity, age, able-bodiness and sexual orientation. Moreover, the literature on care tends to be focused on its costs and responsibilities, while less attention is paid to the right to care and its consequences in terms of status inclusion or exclusion. The study here presented aimed at rethinking the phenomenon of care in a broader perspective, by offering a qualitative analysis that also includes non-conventional caregivers. It builds on the findings of an empirical research on informal care conducted in the USA between 2005 and 2007. The theoretical framework draws on those aspects of the Sociology of Emotions that, in explaining how feelings motivate conformity and social stratification, connect micro- and macro-levels, making care, emotion and sexual orientation central to understand how situated interactions reproduce social structure. The phenomenological analysis of the different meanings and implications of care discussed in this paper sheds light into important and yet less visible and still unexplored aspects of care concerning status and power dimensions. More specifically, it highlights the emotional dynamics thorough which informal care can produce unexpected outcomes in terms of status inclusion and self-empowerment. The implications of more inclusive approaches to Care are crucially important for current debates within social sciences. Situating the debate on same-sex parenthood within the context of care allows us to reframe the discourse on care and reduce the inequalities traditionally connected to this fundamental activity; but it also allows to overcome the misleading dualism between marginalisation and incorporation and to look for anti-assimilationist strategies of inclusion and social change.

The phenomenological analysis presented in this chapter sheds light onto the less visible and often unexplored aspects of care. One of these aspects concerns the energising and empowering effects of care responsibilities that clearly help people not only to overcome the exhaustion connected with multi-task operations but also to balance their perceived status exclusion from other settings. Indeed, the crucial role of care in terms of status inclusion represents one of the unexpected and certainly still uncharted aspects of care. Such broader phenomenological analysis brings to the surface important and understudied elements, perhaps a blend of new and old elements, which acquire a completely new sense in light of the Interaction Ritual model (Collins, 2004) and with the inclusion of gay/lesbian and single carers.

A growing literature on same-sex parenthood supports the argument that nonconventional forms of intimacy and care represent an opportunity to explore possible venues of resistance against macro-structural forces while at the same time avoiding marginalisation. My findings from a previous research on family care conducted in the US show that same-sex parents, by gaining social visibility, enriching and changing the possible definitions of family and parenthood, and challenging hegemonic sexualities, simultaneously distance themselves from homonormative definitions of family and marginalising definitions of cultural citizenship based on hegemonic heterosexuality. The theoretical framework of my research drew on those aspects of the sociology of emotions that, in explaining how feelings can reproduce social stratification, connect micro- and macro-levels, making intimacy, care and emotion central to understand how situated interactions reproduce social structure. Migrant LGBT people share many of the issues and concerns of heterosexual migrant people who are forced to live separated from their partners and/or families, but their experience can be made more complicated by their sexualities, biographies and histories. Their (private) stories and experiences are not only relevant to them, but also to the wider communities of migrant people and to their civil, legal, social and cultural rights. The right to visibility, the right to dignifying and dignified representation, the right to affirmation of identity, and the right to appreciation and valuing of differences also apply to many other forms of cultural citizenship currently denied. The relatively invisible experiences of LGBT transnational families may have therefore important implications in terms of social change and citizenship. Situating the debate of LGBT citizenship within the context of migration allows us to overcome misleading dualisms between marginalisation and incorporation and to look for anti-assimilationist strategies of inclusion. Thus, the nonviolent, micro-situated and emotion-based model of social change represented by these cultural entrepreneurs can perhaps be exported to other social groups, contexts and settings, creating the foundations for more caring, more just and more inclusive societies.

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Long distance relationships and caring at a distance may be connected with emotional and psychological exhaustion but also gratification, reward and empowerment; above all, they possess important implications in terms of social justice, equality and citizenship. The expression ‘world families’ (Beck and Beck-Gernsheim, 2014) includes a heterogeneous and tension-filled set of social actors who have in common the potential to bridge traditional distinctions between public and private, centre and periphery, national and international, able-bodied and physically/cognitively impaired, heterosexual and homosexual, bypassing dichotomous ideas of inclusion/exclusion which typically characterise the concept of citizenship. These families represent a group of very different social actors, including couples of mixed cultures and ethnicities, low-paid migrant workers, skilled migrant workers, asylum seekers, refugees, distant families, etc. who challenge our culturally homogenous understanding of family and society and are defined therefore as ‘pioneers of cosmopolitanism’ and cultural diversity. Drawing on recent work on families, relationships, intimacies and caring for distant others and contextualising it within the specific and still unexplored context of Living Apart Together (LAT) same-sex couples, this article examines the moral, sociological and institutional geographies of these less visible chains of care and affection and their unequally entitled rights and visibility. The literature review is combined with auto-ethnographic work analysing and discussing the case of a married, same-sex, transnational, Living Apart Together (LAT) couple. This article suggests that by looking at what happens at the level of emotion-based, micro-situated interactions we can get some crucial insights into the changing nature of families, intimacies and relationships and their multiple implications in terms of social inclusion, entitlement to rights/citizenship and social change. It is a form of relational, emotion-based and micro-situated social inclusion and entitlement to rights/citizenship which is occurring, on a daily basis, in the interstices of people’s interactions even when such change still meets several obstacles at the structural, political and institutional level.