Difficultés liées à la négociation dans la recherche sur la famille : un regard sur l’organisation financière des couples suédois

Abstract

Negotiation has become an almost given aspect of research on intimate relationships. In this article we question negotiation as a fruitful concept for understanding how couples organize their lives together, more specifically, how Swedish couples organize their finances. The use of negotiations tends to conceal structural inequalities since everyday life is seen as a worked out agreement. This leads to a conceptualizing of relations in couples as void of power. We argue that a more fruitful way of studying how couples organize their finances and lives together is by regarding this from the perspective of the gendered nature of everyday life.