Abstract

This article is an introduction to the special section of ERQ devoted to «Family cultures between everyday practices and representations». The core of this section is constituted by four studies, drawn from an international research on the everyday life of middle class families in Rome, Stockholm, and Los Angeles, called CELF and supported with a grant of the US - SLOAN Foundation. The research focusses on the centrality of ethnographic relationships, reflexivity, the peculiarities of videorecording, and the theoretical framework of discursive psychology. Through close observation of private domestic life, we describe how different ways of «doing family» are co-constructed in the interactions within families and between families and researchers.