Familial Solidarity and Social Reproduction

Abstract

The family is generally regarded as an archetypal embodiment of a community of solidarity. However, it should not be forgotten that the family is not only a “harbour in a heartless world” but is also a central actor in he social reproduction of unequal life chances and social hierarchies. This Janus face of solidarity on the inside and self-assertion and reproduction of economic and symbolic assets on the outside, aptly described by Eduard von Hartmann as family egoism, brings out the fundamental double dynamic of social closure and exclusion in its purest form.