Social Reproduction Theory Inspires My Exhibition
In the process of planning this exhibition with the theme of “Invisible Labor of Women in the Family”, Social Reproduction Theory (SRT) provided me with an important theoretical framework, which enabled me to re-understand the meaning of family labor from the perspective of the overall operating mechanism of capitalist society. By reading Kirstin Munro’s discussion, I realized that housework and care labor in the family are not only necessary conditions for maintaining private life, but also an important part of the continuation of the capitalist economy. As Munro pointed out: “there is no social reproduction without ‘societal reproduction,’ as all production and reproduction in capitalist society are shaped by accumulation” (Munro 2019, 454). This view prompted me to present not only the daily nature of housework in the exhibition, but also highlight its connection with the macro social structure, breaking the traditional boundaries between “private and public” and “family and economy”.
When further thinking about how to show the complexity and dynamism of this labor, I was inspired by Paul Willis’s “Cultural Production”. He proposed: “to constitute a reproduced social relationship as a dynamic and contested one, we must explicitly recognize the somewhat independent logics of what I am calling Cultural Production” (Willis 1981, 49). This made me realize that domestic labor is not a simple mechanical repetition, but a process of women’s active response, adjustment and reconstruction under specific social and historical conditions. Therefore, in the exhibition narrative, I tried to emphasize the initiative and creativity of women in labor, rather than simply reproducing them as oppressed objects.
At the same time, Aaron Jaffe’s contemporary expression of social reproduction theory also made me realize that domestic labor should not be regarded as a place for passive exploitation. He emphasized: “Social Reproduction Theory is committed to linking oppressive logics to the development and actualization of labor powers” (Jaffe 2020, 2). This helped me further raise questions in the exhibition: In capitalist society, how is women’s labor in the family disciplined and restricted at the same time, and how does it breed challenges to the existing order in the gaps?
In contrast, David I. Backer and Kate Cairns’ discussion on social reproduction in education, and Ellie Gore and Genevieve LeBaron’s analysis of “unfree labour” in global supply chains, provide rich perspectives on social reproduction. However, since this exhibition focuses on daily invisible labour within the family, rather than labour conditions in the education system or supply chain, I did not directly use their theories or quote their original texts in the text.
Through the above reading and thinking, social reproduction theory not only helped me realise the systematic status of family labour in the capitalist system, but also inspired me to break the traditional labour narrative in exhibition practice and show the multidimensionality of labour and female subjectivity. This inspiration runs through the entire process of the exhibition’s spatial layout, work selection and text writing.
References
Munro, Kirstin. 2019. “Social Reproduction Theory, Social Reproduction, and Household Production.” Science & Society83 (4): 451–68.
Willis, Paul. 1981. “Cultural Production Is Different from Cultural Reproduction Is Different from Social Reproduction Is Different from Reproduction.” Interchange 12 (2–3): 48–67.
Jaffe, Aaron. 2020. “Social Reproduction Theory and the Form of Labor Power.” CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture 22 (2). https://doi.org/10.7771/1481-4374.3838.
