The tangled webs we weave: Household strategies to co-ordinate home and work

The connections between home and work are manifest in tensions which exist between individual employment mobility and the social and spatial situatedn ess of the household micro-economy. This nexus is a significant dimension o f a growing number of dual earning households. Ar a fundamental level, the co-ordination of home and work hinges on opportunities and constraints pert aining to residential location and mobility and the way this issue is negot iated through the life-course. However, this is not simply determined by th e many logistical difficulties associated with the co-ordination of more th an one employment from a single residential location. Households are 'situa ted' in place in a variety of ways which feed into strategies of relative m obility and attachment to place. It is suggested that the way that househol ds accommodate the demands of horse and work are constituted through a mesh ing together of the action spaces and social relations of individual househ old members in these spheres. In effect, household behaviour emerges from a 'tangled web' of networks: of social and kin relations; of resource provis ion; and of information, knowledge and learning. This paper argues for the need to attend to the situatedness of household s trategies that attempt to co-ordinate home and work. It suggests that this is achieved by observing the way strategies of relative mobility and attach ment to place reproduce, and are reproduced through, networks within a loca le. Existing concepts of strategy and network are combined and operationali sed together through the interpretation of biographical narratives from int erviews with couples from a sample of nuclear family households.