Who Counts as Family? How Standards Stratify Lives

Stefan Timmermans and Pamela J. Prickett

American Sociological Review, 2022, vol. 87, issue 3, 504-528

Abstract: Building on Max Weber’s observation that the state’s reliance on formal tools leads to governance for some and dehumanization for others, we investigate administrative standards as a social mechanism of stratification that sorts people into categories and allocates symbolic and financial resources. Specifically, we examine how at a time of increased family diversity, the state’s use of family standards at the end-of-life discounts certain people as kin. Based on ethnographic and documentary data about government’s implementation of family standards to identify next-of-kin and task them with the disposition of dead bodies, we find that the use of family standards leads to three outcomes: a formal fit between standard and family forms; a formal misfit between who is designated next-of-kin and who is willing to handle disposition, leading to bodies going unclaimed; and a formal refit, where people not officially designated as next-of-kin overcome formal barriers to disposition. Our analysis offers a conceptual framework to examine how administrative standards include and exclude people from social groups. These bureaucratic tools produce a standard-specific governable life for some, and a diverse range of oppositional effects varying from non-recognition to opportunism for the non-standardized.

Keywords: standards; family; stratification; governmentality; death and dying (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:amsocr:v:87:y:2022:i:3:p:504-528

DOI: 10.1177/00031224221092303

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