Journal of Adult Development, Vol. 11, No. 3, July 2004 ( C© 2.docx

Journal of Adult Development, Vol. 11, No. 3, July 2004 ( C©
2004)
Who’s in Charge?: Coparenting in South
and Southeast Asian Families
Rahael Kurrien1,2 and Easter Dawn Vo1
In light of the evolving roles of parents and the involvement of
extended family within Asian
cultures, the traditionally Western dyadic coparenting construct
must be reconceptualized to
include not only the coparenting relationship, but also other
caregivers within the coparenting
network. Theoretical and empirical evidence on coparental
systems are discussed and two
studies from South and Southeast Asian cultures are presented
to highlight subcultural
variations in cocaregiving networks. Results indicated that
mothers were the primary care-
givers across both cultural contexts. Extended family members
assumed important coparental
responsibilities in both cultural contexts. These findings
highlight the need to reconceptualize
and expand the dyadic coparental unit to include extended
family members. We also discuss
the relevance of the broader coparental network in examining
the Asian child”s education as
well as cognitive and socioemotional development.
KEY WORDS: coparenting; extended families; sub-cultural
differences; family roles.

Adults all over the world hold many differ-
ent roles, from friend to coworker to spouse, that
affect their own development as well as that of
their children. One of the most widely researched
adult roles is that of “parent.” For instance, Lamb
(1995) has examined the evolution of the father role
within the United States, and Mirande (1991) has
described the traditional parenting roles in Asian
families. However, over the past 10 years social-
ization researchers (e.g., Belsky, Crnic, & Gable,
1995; McHale, 1995) have given more widespread
attention to the processes of coparenting and co-
caregiving. McHale (1995) defined coparenting as the
amount of support parents provide for one another
in raising their children. As the traditional parenting
roles have begun to evolve because of urbanization,
so too has the process of coparenting.
In the United States, coparenting researchers
have focused both on interadult dynamics within
1Clark University, Worcester, Massachusetts.
2To whom correspondence should be addressed at Department
of Psychology, Clark University, 950 Main Street, Worcester,
MassachusettsMA 01601; e-mail: [email protected]
families along dimensions such as support and an-
tagonism (Frosch & Mangelsdorf, 2000; Katz &
Gottman, 1996; McHale, 1995), and on delineation
of household duties and childcare responsibilities
between mothers and fathers in nuclear families
(Cowan & Cowan, 1992; Deutsch, Lussier, & Servis,
1993). However, at the same time, there has been
a growing appreciation among developmental psy-
chologists for the fact that millions of the world’s
children are growing up with multiple caregiving

figures (McHale, Khazan, et al., 2002), and that psy-
chology’s stereotypical model of the family in its
nuclear two-parent form has little applicability cross-
nationally (McHale, Lauretti, Talbot, & Pouquette,
2002). Therefore, this paper will (a) discuss the evo-
lution of parenting roles in Asian families and how
those changes have necessitated a reconceptualiza-
tion of coparenting in South and Southeast Asian
families; (b) examine the process by which copar-
enting is navigated in two different cultures by pre-
senting studies of Indian and Vietnamese families’
parenting beliefs and practices; and (c) present an
argument for why coparenting should be studied in
other cultures.
207
1068-0667/04/0700-0207/0 C© 2004 Plenum Publishing
Corporation
208 Kurrien and Dawn Vo
Parental Roles
Differences between ideal, perceived, and actual
parental roles are significant because such discrepan-
cies can affect both the adult’s satisfaction and well-
being in the parenting relationship and the child’s
adjustment and development in life. For instance,
DeVos (1978, cited in Sue & Morishima, 1982) theo-
rizes that “the role and structure within the Japanese
American family are responsible for the individual’s
ability to adapt and adjust” (p. 79). By this he means
that each member within a Japanese family has spe-

cific, well-defined obligations and functions which
they must perform, thereby protecting individuals
from juvenile delinquency, mental disorders, and al-
coholism, while promoting high rates of academic
achievement and income (Sue & Morishima, 1982).
Empirical work has supported DeVos’ theory and
shown that the way parents view their role is im-
portant to their personal mental health (Brody, Flor,
& Neubaum, 1998; Sonuga-Barke & Mistry, 2000)
and to their child’s development and adjustment
(Hackett & Hackett, 1993; Ishii-Kuntz, 1995; Lamb,
1995) across a number of different cultures.
Caregivers do not exist within a vacuum but
are part of a broader environmental surround that
influences their own and their children’s develop-
ment. As will be discussed in further detail shortly,
there are prototypical mother and father roles that
often vary little across cultures. However, the diver-
gent cross-cultural functions of mothers and fathers
evolve based on factors such as industrialization,
residential living patterns, and roles of other family
members. Although traditional and evolved mother–
father roles may be relatively similar across cultures,
it is other caregiver roles (e.g., grandparent, aunt)
and the environment (e.g., the extended family liv-
ing) in which a child is raised that may contribute to
the diverging pathways toward mental health (Brody
et al., 1998; Sonuga-Barke & Mistry, 2000) and child
adjustment (Hackett & Hackett, 1993; Ishii-Kuntz,
1995; Lamb, 1995). For instance, parents in many
cultures may have the goal of caring and providing
for their children, but the context in which they raise
their children may be vastly different, thus contribut-
ing to different developmental outcomes.

Traditional Roles
Cross-culturally, traditional parental roles often
dictate that the mother be doting, emotional provider
with the father as a teacher and main provider of
material support (Ho, 1987; Ishii-Kuntz, 1995). In
both Asia (Mirande, 1991) and America (Lamb,
1995), the most traditional basic role for mothers
has indeed been that of nurturer with fathers as the
primary breadwinner. Although times have changed,
this basic role division is still at work in both Asian
and European American cultures. The contention
here is not that parental roles are perceived in the
same way across all cultures, but that often the ideal,
primary roles of parents are construed in the same
manner across cultures and that the ideals evolve as
the society develops and grows.
Just as American fathers were once primarily
viewed as breadwinners or moral and gender role
guides with mothers’ primary functions viewed as
emotional and physical nurturers (Lamb, 1995),
roles of Asian parents were construed in this fashion.
In a conceptual paper describing traditional Asian
parents, Shon and Ja (1992) characterize the father
as the unquestioned authority and leader of the
family while the mother is the nurturer. Most often,
Confucian principles provide the historical basis for
Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and Southeast Asian
parenting roles (Mirande, 1991). This typically
implies that the father made most of the decisions,
had the responsibility to provide for the family by
ensuring its economic welfare, and was the primary
disciplinarian. In contrast, the mother’s role was to
be emotionally available by listening when the child

had difficulties and to be emotionally expressive.
Furthermore, the mother’s role was to feed, clothe,
and take care of the child. Fathers also had this
function, but fulfilled it more instrumentally by
providing the economic means to feed, clothe, and
take care of the child, whereas mothers were the
ones who carried out actual caretaking activities
(Ishii-Kuntz, 2000; Shon & Ja, 1992). Kibria’s (1993)
findings also support this distinction of parental roles
in Vietnamese families. The fathers in Kibria’s (1993)
interviews were the primary breadwinners, more
physically and emotionally distant than mothers,
and the main authority figures who meted out the
punishment. Thus, at the most basic level, mothers
were the main sources of physical and emotional
support while fathers were the primary breadwinners
and disciplinarians. Both Asian and Euro-American
fathers were less involved than mothers in the daily
caretaking activities (i.e., bathing, feeding) of their
children, while mothers maintained the primary
caregiver role by providing emotional and physical
nurturance. However, as times have changed,
Coparenting in South and Southeast Asian Families 209
fathers in both cultures have expanded their primary
functions such that they become more involved even
at earlier stages of the child’s development.
The Evolving Roles
With urbanization, migration, and acculturation
the father’s role has appeared to change more than
the mother’s role for both European and Asian

Americans. Within the last few decades in America, a
“new fatherhood” movement surfaced (Lamb, 1995)
in which the fathers’ primary role moved toward
being more involved and nurturant toward the chil-
dren, although still less so than mothers. The Euro-
American fathers moved from an exclusive role as
breadwinner and teacher to emphasizing the devel-
opment of close affective relationships with their
children (Harkness & Super, 1992). Despite urban-
ization, the Euro-American mother has remained in
the role of primary nurturer and emotional provider
although her time spent with the child may be less
than before (Lamb, 1995). Similarly, Jankowiak’s
(1992) review of Asian societies showed that urban-
ization led to a change from fathers’ discouraging
emotional display toward a more intimate father–
child bond such that fathers can now, within their
expected role, display affection. This new role of
fathers owes largely to mothers’ employment outside
of the home, different sizes of the domestic space
(smaller living space forces fathers to be in closer
proximity to their children), and the new folk concept
of increasing father involvement (Jankowiak, 1992;
Lamb, 1995).
Besides engaging in more frequent and active
emotional displays, fathers are also beginning to
spend more time with their children and participating
in child rearing activities. Lamb (1995) would argue
that while fathers are still expected to fulfill the
primary breadwinner role, they are also becoming a
greater indirect source of influence on mothers and
are more directly involved with childcare. Fathers
in or from Asian countries have likewise become
nurturant in the sense that they spend more time
interacting with their children. For instance, there is

some evidence that Japanese men are making the
transition from being absent, workaholic fathers to
more nurturant fathers due to karoshi (death by
fatigue) and children’s toko kyohi (refusal to at-
tend school; Ishii-Kuntz, 1995). These families, then,
are becoming less “fatherless” in the physical sense.
Correspondingly, in a survey-based qualitative study
that asked about aspects of children’s educational,
psychological, and cultural problems and assets,
Korean parents indicated that fathers in America are
more likely to participate in childcare activities such
as changing diapers (Yu & Kim, 1983). They also
recognized the need for egalitarian roles between
husband and wife. Therefore, in both Asian and
Euro-American families, fathers are becoming more
nurturant in the sense that they spend more time with
their children and are slowly progressing to share
more childcare duties.
Because roles have changed and there is more
involvement between parents across all domains of
parenting, the importance of studying the coordina-
tion of these roles on the children’s mental health is
extremely important. As Asian families also become
more westernized, it becomes important, too, to
study how they transition to coordinating roles rather
than maintaining strict parenting role boundaries.
This sharing of roles requires greater coordination
and cooperation between parents. However, beyond
the mother–father-coparenting unit, given the in-
volvement of extended family in Asian cultures, it is
important also to examine the entire coparenting net-
work that may include grandparents, aunts, and older
siblings. Relatives in Asian cultures may be placed by
mothers and fathers in the role of surrogate parent

and thus, are afforded the right or has the obligation
to provide discipline or moral instruction to the child.
Also, many Asian families engage in extended family
living such that the influence of nuclear and extended
family remains stable and consequential. Thus, how
do all the “parents” within the Asian family organize
and manage their parental roles and beliefs?
Extended Family Involvement
The functioning cocaregiving unit in many non-
Western family units extends beyond mothers and fa-
thers to other relatives (e.g., Bharat, 1996; Mirande,
1991) as well as close family friends in some circum-
stances (Kibria, 1993). In Asian cultures (Mirande,
1991; Staples & Mirande, 1980; Woods, 1996), as
opposed to American society, the extended fam-
ily network is an obligation rather than an option.
Generally, extended family living is more prevalent
among Asian Americans than Euro-Americans. Fur-
thermore, Vietnamese families report greater ex-
tended family living than any other Asian American
groups (U.S. census data, 1990, cited in Ishii-Kuntz,
2000).
In comparison to the United States, societies in
which the extended family plays a more prominent
function also have designated family member roles.
Although the mother–child dyad has been consid-
ered of primary influence on the child’s development
and survival, in the extended family living environ-
ment the mother’s role becomes less central (Rogoff,

Mistry, Goncu, & Mosier, 1991). This is especially
true in families who have more than one child,
live near or even with relatives, and are involved
in a relationship of long-term support and obliga-
tion with other community members (Rogoff et al.,
1991).
Brody et al. (1998) speculate that the ex-
tended kin network provides strength to the African
American family so that children, despite chronic
problems such as poverty, can often develop into
“emotionally, healthy competent people” (p. 232).
Also, Hackett and Hackett (1993) attributed greater
well-being of Asian children to structural features of
the traditional Asian family. Particularly, they found
that extended family involvement promotes psycho-
logical well-being in children. On the other hand,
when the extended family does not provide tangible
and emotional assistance, there is also risk for ten-
sion to arise. Disagreements and conflicts between
different caregivers (not just parents) often send the
child the message of instability and may adversely
affect the child’s outcome (Brody et al., 1998). Thus,
it can be speculated that when one person infringes
on the perceived role boundaries or does not meet
the actual role, conflict may ensue and create disad-
vantages in a child’s development.
In other related work, Roopnarine, Lu, and
Ahmeduzzaman (1989) have shown that in the
Kuching (a Chinese Malyasian society) and in Asian
Indian societies, the extended family network is actu-
ally preferred over the nuclear family unit. In modern
society, it is difficult to maintain the extended family
structure because of the more common dual-earner
unit and other means of childcare (i.e., nonrelated

caregivers). However, the father–son ties help to
maintain the extended family network. Also, in these
societies, adults may drop in to visit friends and
relatives without first giving notification or having
an invitation—an act that is usually construed as
intrusive in American society. If the families are
able to visit anytime, are they also allowed to give
their opinions and participate in child rearing? In-
deed, Roopnarine et al. (1989) suggest that in Indian
families, extended family members contribute to the
socialization of infants and young children because
most of the early childhood is spent in an extended
family environment.
For refugees such as the Vietnamese, the struc-
ture of extended families is even more multifaceted.
After the Vietnam War, it was far too common
to find young Vietnamese children in the United
States without their parents or Vietnamese hus-
bands without their wives; so as a coping mech-
anism, Vietnamese Americans worked hard to re-
build family ties in the United States by altering and
broadening the inclusion criteria of “family” (Kibria,
1993). Therefore, friends and distant relatives who
had been only marginally involved in the family in
Vietnam became part of the active circle of kin net-
work in the United States (Kibria, 1993). Histori-
cally, Vietnamese families used Confucianism as a set
of ideal standards for kin relations, but they also had
a less strict model that included bilateral and distant
kin (Kibria, 1993). This has perhaps enabled them
more flexibility to include friends and extended fam-
ily members into the immediate family network once
in the United States. Vietnamese Americans endeav-
ored not only to implement the traditional family

system, but also to expand upon it for emotional
and economic gains in the United States (Kibria,
1993).
Given the fact that extended family involvement
and living is an obligation rather than an option
in many Asian cultures (Staples & Mirande, 1980;
Woods, 1996), we present data from two studies
about cocaregiving roles and family structure within
Asian cultures to further McHale’s argument that the
construct of coparenting must be reconceptualized
for these families in order to accurately encapsulate
their family processes. Specifically, we will examine
studies of Indian and Vietnamese families to exem-
plify the need for reconceptualization. Coparenting
has been defined as the degree of support parents
provide for one another in raising their children
(McHale, 1995). In light of our argument above
about the evolution of parenting roles as well as
the obligation of extended family involvement, what
does the process of coparenting in other cultures look
like?
Coparental Systems in Asian Cultures
The complexities of family systems and process
in Asian families makes the study of coparenting in
these cultures particularly relevant because it offers
a comparative view of contemporary child rearing
and caregiving arrangements. In addition, in exam-
ining cocaregiving in Asian cultures, it is particularly

important to take into account the growing influence
of westernization and urbanization on Asian families
that have led to both structural and cultural changes
in family networks, child rearing beliefs, and child-
care arrangements.
Although there have been numerous conceptual
and ethnographic reports on family life in Asian
families (Kibria, 1993; Zhou & Bankston, 1998) there
have been relatively few empirical studies on par-
enting and family dynamics. With regards to par-
enting, research in Asia has broadly focused on the
themes of familial interdependence and parenting
styles (Chao & Tseng, 2002). In India, for exam-
ple, the ties between family members and relatives
are characterized by a strong sense of duty, familial
expectations, roles and obligations, irrespective of
the proximity of residence (Sekaran, 1992). Family
researchers in India have examined the associations
between maternal employment and gender role ide-
ologies on paternal and extrafamilial involvement in
childcare with somewhat contradictory results. Al-
though Ramu (1987) reported that in middle-class
Indian families, maternal employment did not have
a significant effect on men’s involvement in child-
care tasks, Suppal, Roopnarine, Buesig, and Bennett
(1996) nearly a decade later asserted that families
in which women were primarily homemakers were
more likely to hold a traditional orientation with
respect to the gendered division of family roles. Sub-
cultural differences in socioeconomic status family
structure and living circumstances (urban/rural) have
also been examined with relation to the division
of childcare responsibilities in Indian families. Al-
though these studies across the board have indicated
that mothers remain the primary caregiver, it is im-

portant to note interesting subgroup differences. In
nuclear families, mothers relied on fathers and do-
mestic servants to share in caregiving tasks whereas
in joint families, mothers sought assistance from ex-
tended family members (e.g., grandmothers, aunts)
who often assumed significant roles in other aspects
of child rearing. In addition, in socioeconomically
disadvantaged families in which mothers worked out-
side the home, caretaking responsibilities were di-
vided among other family members (Seymour, 1993,
1999). In a study of rural caregiving arrangements
in India, rural mothers, irrespective of employment
status, relied on female family members and older
siblings for cocaregiving (Desai & Jain, 1994; Sriram
& Ganapathy, 1997).
A similar pattern of dependence on family mem-
bers for childcare was noted among dual-earner Sin-
gaporean families (Yuen & Lim, 1992). According to
a 1986 National Survey of Working Mothers (cited
in Yuen & Lim, 1992), more than half of all working
mothers sought assistance from relatives, particularly
grandmothers, for caregiving of their pre-school-age
children. About 40% of these women lived in ex-
tended family situations. The employment of domes-
tic servants to help out with both household work and
childcare is common among upper class dual-earner
families. The foster care of children, particularly
infants, is still a common caregiving arrangement
among the more traditional of dual-earner Singa-
porean families. The formal childcare system, which
primarily caters to pre-school-age children, is slowly
gaining popularity among educated working mothers
in Singapore (Yuen & Lim, 1992). Lu, Maume, and
Bellas (2000) in an analysis of the 1991 Household
Survey of the China Health and Nutrition Study re-

ported interesting urban–rural differences in the pre-
dictors of paternal involvement in household labor
and childcare in Chinese families. In urban house-
holds, maternal employment and men’s higher edu-
cation levels were associated with greater paternal
engagement in household work and childcare. Con-
versely, the greater the disparity between spouses’
income levels, the lower urban men’s participation
was in household labor and caregiving. On the other
hand, in rural families, maternal employment status,
men’s higher educational status, and the egalitarian
balance of decision-making powers between spouses
positively influenced the amount of time that men
spent in household labor and caregiving. Although
across both urban and rural settings, mothers were
primarily responsible for housework and childcare,
in rural families in which there was a daughter-in-law,
men’s involvement in household chores and caregiv-
ing decreased.
In summary, in light of the evidence on parent-
ing in Asian cultures which indicate that female fam-
ily members (e.g., grandmothers and aunts), older
siblings, and neighbors are central cocaretaking fig-
ures, there is a need to reconceptualize the tradi-
tional Western dyadic coparenting construct in order
to accurately portray and describe the complexities
of caregiving arrangements in contemporary Asian
families. Although structural aspects such as family
composition are important considerations in the con-
ceptualization of coparenting in Asian families, inter-
familial functional relationships (e.g., the nature and
extent of social interaction, communication) have

also been recently emphasized in cross-cultural stud-
ies of the family (Georgas et al., 2001). The question
of functional relationships is particularly pertinent to
Asian families wherein gender role ideologies shape
interactions and expectations within the family.
RECONCEPTUALIZING COPARENTING IN
SOUTH AND SOUTHEAST ASIAN CULTURES
The significance of extended family members
and other informal childcare figures (such as neigh-
bors) has been emphasized in many reports of par-
enting and role-sharing (Desai & Jain, 1994; Lu et al.,
2000; Sinha, 1996; Verma, 1995) in South Asian
cultures. We contend that applying the dyadic, pre-
dominantly Western, conceptualization of the copar-
enting construct to studying coparenting dynamics
and family systems in South and Southeast Asian
cultures would be erroneous and would negate the
influence of important multiple caregivers in the
child’s environment. Understanding the variability in
the composition of caregiving networks is also crucial
in accurately describing the functional complexities
of coparenting systems within these cultures. We
will examine the relevance of the Western dyadic
coparenting construct, and highlight the need for a
broader reconceptualization of the construct in cross-
cultural family studies by presenting data from two
studies on cocaregiving arrangements in Vietnamese
American and Indian families. These studies under-
score the importance of developing indigenous the-
oretical frameworks in order to reliably understand
and portray Asian family system.

Study 1: The Indian Family Context
The first study was a quantitative analysis of the
variability in cocaregiving arrangements as a function
of socioeconomic status and family structure in con-
temporary urban and rural Indian families. The sam-
ple comprised of three subgroups of 15 Hindu moth-
ers, each with a pre-school-age child. Fifteen families
lived in an urban socioeconomically disadvantaged
area of Pune, another 15 in upper-middle class neigh-
borhoods in Pune, and the last group of mothers
in a neighboring poor rural area. Each subgroup
had families with nuclear and joint/extended family
structures. We designed a caregiving responsibility
interview schedule in which mothers identified all the
child’s caregivers in the family and then reported on
the weekly distribution of nine caregiving activities
among the identified caretakers. The nine activities
included brushing teeth, toileting, bathing, dressing,
feeding breakfast, taking to preschool center, bring-
ing back home from preschool center, feeding lunch,
feeding dinner, and putting to bed. Mothers reported
on the number of days in the week that different
family members carried out each of the nine caregiv-
ing activities. We initially calculated each caregiver’s
total weekly involvement with the preschooler across
all nine activities and then examined the patterns of
caregiving as a function of family structure and living
circumstance.
Across the patterns of family structure and liv-
ing circumstance, we noted that mothers assumed
the role of primary caregiver of their pre-school-
age children. Of note is the significant interaction
between family structure and living circumstance for

parental involvement in childcare; F (2.45) = 4.27,
p = .02. Follow-up analyses using the Bonferroni
correction for multiple comparisons indicated that
in middle-class urban families, regardless of whether
family structure was nuclear (Fig. 1) or joint (Fig. 2)
fathers were more involved in caregiving than were
fathers in urban and rural disadvantaged families.
Across nuclear families, fathers in upper-middle class
families (M = 14.56, SD = 3.84) were more engaged
in caregiving activities than fathers from urban so-
cioeconomically disadvantaged families (M = 5.00,
SD = 1.41; t = 6.21, df = 14, p = .00) and those from
rural socioeconomically disadvantaged households
(M = 5.20, SD = 0.48; t = 5.16, df = 12, p = .00).
Across joint families, paternal involvement in child-
care in upper-middle class households (M = 8.83,
SD = 2.31) was greater than involvement in both
urban poor (M = 3.75, SD = 1.04; t = 5.57, df = 12,
p = .00) and rural socioeconomically disadvantaged
families (M = 2.80, SD = 0.79; t = 7.68, df = 14, p =
.00). Follow-up analyses indicated no significant dif-
ferences in paternal involvement in caregiving be-
tween the urban and rural socioeconomically disad-
vantaged fathers.
Of note was the compelling degree of variability
in caregiving structures and practices among
contemporary Indian families. Overall, in both urban
and rural residences, fathers in nuclear families were
more engaged in caregiving activities than those in
joint families. In joint families, coparenting respon-
sibilities were shared among other female family
members. In upper-middle class joint families, grand-
mothers were identified as the only nonparental
coparenting source of support, whereas in both

Fig. 1. Engagement with child as a function of family structure
and living circumstance: Nuclear
Indian families.
Fig. 2. Engagement with child as a function of family structure
and living circumstance: Joint
Indian families.
Table I. Demographic Information for Vietnamese American
Families
Number of Number of Children’s age Residence in the
family members children (in years) US (in years)
Family 01 7 1 2.5 20
Family 02 5 3 9, 6, and 1 2
Family 03 7 3 8, 5, 3 months 13
Family 04 6 4 15, 10, 7, 9 months 3
Family 05 3 2 6, 9 months 10
urban and rural socioeconomically disadvantaged
families, caregiving responsibilities were distributed
among other female relatives such as aunts and older
siblings. Part of this may be due to the fact that
our sample of upper-middle class families has fewer
children, and even in families in which there were
older siblings, they were not called upon or expected
to share in caregiving activities. Noteworthy is our

finding that in none of the 24 joint families were
fathers more involved in child care activities than
were grandmothers or other female extended
family members who provided the major source of
caregiving support to the mother. This can be most
prudently explained by the accessibility of other
family members for cocaregiving support and by
the pressure in joint families to subscribe to more
conventional gendered family roles and child rearing
practices than in nuclear families. Findings from this
study support McHale and colleagues’ contention
that narrow conceptualizations of coparenting as a
family process shared by married partners are clearly
irrelevant for many Indian families. Moreover,
they also highlight the important socioeconomic
subcultural differences in Indian families’ functional
cocaregiving arrangements.
Study 2: The Vietnamese American Family Context
The second study was a qualitative analysis of
the Vietnamese American parents’ perception of
parental roles and how they evolved or were main-
tained postimmigration. Participants were five intact
Vietnamese American immigrant families from an
urban New England community of 180,000 people.
The average age for mothers was 33.4 and for fathers
it was 37.6. The average number of children in the
household was three, with the ages ranging from
3 months to 15 years. On average, the families had
been in the United States for 9.4 years (Table I).
Perceptions regarding actual and traditional par-
enting roles as well as expectations of parenting were
obtained through the semistructured Parenting Roles

Interview developed specifically for the study. The
interview consisted of eight questions regarding per-
ceptions of parenting roles, parenting in Vietnam,
and expectations before starting a family. There were
a subset of questions regarding other caregiver roles
(e.g., grandparents) and instances of cooperation or
tension that were only asked if the family indicated
on the demographics questionnaire that other indi-
viduals, aside from mother and father, had parental
or caregiving roles in their children’s lives. Two sce-
narios, one depicting a discipline situation and the
other a feeding scenario, were developed to elicit
reactions from parents regarding a relative and a
close friend participating in unsolicited caretaking
duties of their children.
Extended family members, from the parents’
perceptions, had supportive, complementary roles,
but did not assume any responsibilities that the
parents did not otherwise perform. In other words,
extended family members did not have a unique
role. For instance, mother 05 presented the maternal
grandparent role as
taking care of feeding, sleeping, clothing, and taking
them to school for me, and watching over them at
home so that I can go to work. . . almost equivalent
to the mother’s role because the maternal grandpar-
ents love their grandchildren so they worry about
them a lot.
Similarly, mother 03 considered herself and the
maternal grandmother as having the same functions:
“to give the grandchild the bottle, sit and play with
each other. [laughs] So, if she can help me with
anything, she does then.”

Family 01 parents viewed the maternal grand-
parents as a support system as well as providing
knowledge about Vietnamese culture to the child.
Mother 01 said that if there is
something I don’t understand I ask my mom. Some-
thing that I’m not familiar with and she’s [the child]
sick and it was different and it doesn’t seem like
something that would harm her, I would ask her
how to do this, you know Asian remedies, like
dau. . . that’s her role to support and my father too.
The father viewed the grandparents’ roles more
as educators of the child than as parent supporters.
Specifically, the maternal grandparents
teach her a more religious side of it, which is bringing
up the Catholic/Christian value and uh, and um,
more the cultural education, which we can’t give
her because we’re basically, Americanized. So we’ll
teach her what we’ve experienced but also we can
offset that by what her parents [the maternal grand-
parents] give her [the child] of the old culture, so it’s
a very. . . it’s a very delicate balance.
In the Vietnamese child’s life, extended fam-
ily members are typically present within the same
household and depending on the parents’ beliefs,
these family members may have a role that extends
beyond babysitting. These Vietnamese parents per-

ceive their extended family members as having roles
that include teaching and nurturing. Thus, the Viet-
namese child’s social and emotional development is
influenced by input from both the parents and other
family members.
In accordance with DeVos’ theory, these
Vietnamese parents maintain stability through im-
plementation of strict role guidelines that outline
what others have the right to participate in. Further-
more, in the interest of constancy, extended family
members’ roles are not generally unique from that
of mothers and fathers. Parents, grandparents, aunts,
and uncles all feed, teach, and play with children.
Although what is taught to the child may be different,
the common denominator is being a teacher. The ab-
sence of a unique role provides further support that
other caregivers do influence the child and are enti-
tled to participate in caregiving tasks. If the individ-
ual had only babysitting rights, the influence would
be more limited. In the case of Vietnamese families,
though, evidence to date has indicated that extended
family members can be considered “parents” as well.
Most importantly, everyone must function within and
not traverse across the role boundaries.
Of particular note is that although none of the
families reported having nonfamilial members in-
volved in the parenting tasks, they did endorse a
friend’s involvement in the hypothetical scenarios.
In terms of a close friend’s unsolicited participation,
9 of 16 responses were accepting of a friend’s in-
volvement. The differences here reflected a division
between mothers and fathers. In terms of discipline,
only mothers said that a close friend did not have the

right (01) or that it was only the mother’s job (05).
Mother 04 initially did not understand the question
and, given her mental status, said that when the
friend scolds the child and “I’m sick then I’ll yell
back at my close friend. I’ll yell really loudly. I get
very agitated.” Fathers, however, found a friend’s
discipline of their child acceptable. For instance, fa-
ther 04 said, “I wouldn’t be mad because they love
my child. They would. . . if the child does misbehave
then scolding them a little is a good thing.” Similarly,
father 01 “expected it from them because although I
don’t believe in punishment, I do believe in scolding
her and uh, set an example of what is right and wrong.
So I do expect them to scold her.” Father 02 also did
not believe in scolding, but thought that adults must
“teach them through love and care.” Therefore, if a
friend were to “teach” the child, the father would “be
happy” about that.
In summary, both studies depart from the
traditional two-parent nuclear family research
that has been conducted in European American
cultures. Our data revealed that in both Indian
and Vietnamese American families, others play
active roles in the cocaregiving of children. Apart
from the child’s biological parents, the coparenting
figures in his/her environment are most typically
extended family members. In rarer instances, they
may be close nonfamilial friends, who may or may
not be given “fictive” status as uncles or aunts. This
broader coparenting family system in both Indian
and Vietnamese families stands in contrast to the
narrow conceptualization of the two-parent nuclear
marital/coparenting unit in European American
families. Even though the method in both studies
differed, the similarity in findings across the two

cultural groups provide clear support for McHale’s
call to recast the Western coparenting construct
so that it more accurately captures the realities of
family life in contemporary South Asian families.
WHY STUDY COPARENTING
IN ASIAN CULTURES?
We have seen how studying coparenting in other
cultures will require expanding the definitions of
coparenting, but what relevance does this construct
have in Asian cultures at all? Rather than merely
instilling a Western-defined construct on Asian cul-
tures, we must examine what value it holds for
individuals and family development within those
cultures. Typically, the impetus and importance of
studying coparenting in the United States has been
to study the mechanisms influencing generally, child
development, and specifically, psychopathology. As
emphasized earlier, there has been a dearth of studies
investigating the influence of this larger coparenting
network on the child’s developmental trajectory in
Asian families. We will review some of the studies
that have underscored the impact of the broader co-
parental system on child outcomes such as academic
performance, cognitive development, social adjust-
ment, and overall mental health in Asian cultures.
First, we propose that the expanded view of
coparenting to include other cocaregiving figures is
important to Asian families because of the impact

cohesive coparenting networks may have on the ed-
ucation of children developing within these systems.
Ethnic differences in cultural values and beliefs may
affect children’s academic performance through such
socialization practices as parental discipline (Blair,
Blair, & Madamba, 1999). In relation to coparenting,
if an Asian child living within a household is disci-
plined by many different cocaregivers, this pattern
of discipline must be cohesive between the copar-
enting network in order for it to be effective and
thus, influencing educational achievement. Availabil-
ity of parents has also been associated with academic
performance with single parent status, divorce, or
employment status having the most impact (Astone
& McLanahan, 1991). For Asian families, there may
be more adult, parental figures around who assume
cocaregiving roles and may be able to buffer the
effects of parents who may have to work outside of
the home. Again, it is important that these cocaregiv-
ing figures share congruent perspectives on parent-
ing rather than exhibiting conflict around parenting
roles. In one study of racial and ethnic differences in
academic performance, Blair et al. (1999) found that
Asian American students’ performance was most
affected by socioeconomic status. Asian families who
have extended family living arrangements and are
able to coordinate finances as well as caregiving du-
ties may be more likely to have children who are pro-
vided adequate resources (e.g., finances, attention) to
perform better in school than their Euro-American
counterparts.
Second, many studies have examined the impor-
tance of coordinated efforts between members of the
coparental network on cognitive and social develop-
ment as well as overall mental health. For example,

Hackett and Hackett (1993) attributed greater well-
being of Asian children to structural features of the
traditional Asian family. Particularly, they found that
extended family involvement promotes psychologi-
cal well-being in children. On the other hand, when
the extended family does not provide tangible and
emotional assistance, there is also risk for tension to
arise. Disagreements and conflicts between different
caregivers (not just parents) often send the child the
message of instability and may adversely affect the
child’s outcome (Brody et al., 1998).
Also, maternal perception of both concrete
and emotional support from extended family
members in urban socioeconomically disadvantaged
Indian families was related to a child’s cognitive
and social development (Naug, 2000). Children
from contemporary Indian joint families that were
cohesive were found to be better socioemotionally
adjusted than those from nuclear families indicating
that apart from family size, the functional aspects
of familial relationships are crucial in determining
the child’s developmental outcomes (Chakrabatri,
Biswas, Chattopadhyay, & Saha, 1998). Studies on
children at risk have highlighted the role of the
extended family system in supporting child rearing,
buffering against adversity, and enhancing the
child’s resiliency in the face of difficult circumstances
(Sharma, 2000). The larger coparental system in
India also has significant positive implications for
children’s mental health outcomes, which suggests
that the child’s experience in families with extended
support systems alleviates sources of stress, and
mitigates the effect of potential mental disorders.

Further, Sonuga-Barke and Mistry (2000) found
that when Hindu and Muslim mothers perceived
grandmother support as intrusive or overbearing
there were sometimes detrimental effects on the
child’s development. In their study of intergenera-
tional living, the children and grandmothers exhib-
ited fewer adjustment problems (assessed through
teachers’ completion of the Rutter Scale) than the
mothers, who often suffered from depression and
anxiety. Others (i.e., Cooley & Unger, 1991) have
reported evidence that grandmothers may influence
children indirectly through their support of teenage
mothers, but Sonuga-Barke and Mistry’s (2000) data
reveal that grandmothers can also have a direct effect
on children through practical care, moral guidance,
and cognitive and emotional instruction.
Beyond any direct benefits to the child, grand-
mothers are also in a position to fulfill the tradi-
tional role of care provider and guide. Unfortunately,
the benefits accrued by grandmothers and children
may come at a cost to the whole family if moth-
ers are saddled with the larger burden of being
simultaneously a good mother, wife, and daughter-
in-law (Sonuga-Barke & Mistry, 2000). Of course,
this tension only creates problems when the role
of the grandmother conflicts with the role of the
mother. Indeed, when there were disagreements be-
tween mothers and grandmothers, mothers are at a
heightened risk for depression and anxiety (Sonuga-
Barke & Mistry, 2000). The authors, Sonuga-Barke

and Mistry, speculate that “mothers may lose a sense
of agency and develop feelings of helplessness in the
presence of overbearing and intrusive grandmothers
with whom they disagree over child care” (p. 138).
Therefore, it is important to underscore the influ-
ence of the functional aspects of coparental networks
on children’s cognitive and socioemotional develop-
ment over and above the structural aspects of Asian
families.
CONCLUSION
It is clear that within Asian families, the copar-
enting construct is in fact important and relevant to
the child’s development because mothers and fathers
are both involved in parenting tasks rather than
being divided in their roles in the family as nur-
turer and breadwinner, respectively. The processes
of “coparenting” defined as the degree to which par-
ents support one another, certainly is a part of Asian
family functioning. However, as argued extensively
in this paper, the Western construct of coparenting
in its current form, while relevant to Asian families,
must be reconceptualized to entirely encapsulate the
Asian family system. Specifically, extended family
members as evidenced through the two studies of
Indian and Vietnamese families, are not mere fig-
ureheads or “babysitters,” but they are cocaregivers
in the lives of Indian and Vietnamese children. As
evidenced in the Indian family study, the subcultural
variation between socioeconomic statuses plays a
larger role in the determination of the coparental
network. Also, the subcultural differences between
Vietnamese immigrants also factors into whether rel-
atives and/or nonfamilial friends are included into
coparenting system.

The significance of extended family members
and other informal childcare figures (such as neigh-
bors) has been emphasized in numerous reports of
parenting and role-sharing (Desai & Jain, 1994; Lu
et al., 2000; Verma, 1995) in Asian cultures. These
findings clearly highlight the inadequacy of concep-
tualizing coparenting processes as a subset of mar-
ital relations. Assuming that the biological parents
are the only essential coparenting figures in South
and Southeast Asian families ignores the reality that
there are multiple important caregivers functioning
in the child’s everyday environment. Understanding
subcultural variabilities in the composition of care-
giving networks is crucial in accurately describing
the functional complexities of coparenting systems
within these cultures. It is also relevant in examining
the influence and benefits of the larger coparenting
network on the child’s developmental trajectory and
parents’ mental health in Asian families.
We recommend that future coparenting studies
with similar populations use observational measures
as well as narrative reports to assess the division of
caregiving responsibilities in such families. Further
research is also needed to assess mothers’ and fa-
thers’ ideological beliefs about cocaregiving in Asian
families. This is particularly relevant in urban–middle
class families, which are being increasingly influenced
by westernization (Roopnarine & Hossain, 1992). It
would be instructive to assess whether there looks to
be a shift in such families from conventional cultural
beliefs to more nontraditional views regarding family
practices within the broader coparenting structure.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Work on this paper and the results reported
herein was made possible in part by National Insti-
tutes of Health grant supplement HD37172 awarded
to James P. McHale, supporting the scholarly work
of Easter Dawn Vo. The authors acknowledge the
helpful comments of Dr McHale, Department of Psy-
chology, University of South Florida, St. Petersburg;
Dr Prerna Mohite, Department of Human Devel-
opment and Family Studies, Maharaja Sayaaji Rao
University, India; and Dr Neerja Sharma, Depart-
ment of Child Development, Lady Irwin College,
Delhi, on earlier drafts of this paper. The authors also
thank the anonymous reviewers for their thoughtful
comments.
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Social & cultural GeoGraphy, 2016
Vol. 17, No. 6, 803–807
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14649365.2016.1165859
Engaging climate change: cultural geography and worldly

theory
George Revill
Faculty of arts and Social Sciences, Department of Geography,
the open university, Milton Keynes, uK
ARTICLE HISTORY received 3 May 2015; accepted 25
February 2016
Introduction
This provocation proposes that cultural geographers should pay
more attention to theory
itself as geographically and historically located cultural
material. The paper argues this opens
up the possibilities for theorizing within the context of
interdisciplinary and multi-disciplinary
research. It has particular relevance for cultural geography’s
engagement with arts and cre-
ative practice. The paper adopts the example of climate change
to highlight some of the
ways theories and concepts both connect and divide in
interdisciplinary contexts. It argues
for an historical and cultural approach to theory and theorizing
able to both contextualize
different approaches and open up theoretical spaces to informed
creative thinking which
might help us bridge disciplinary divides.
In this context, theoretical ‘worldliness’ means recognizing the
situated nature of knowl-
edge and developing sensitivity to the various ways in which
theories circulate and act
beyond the familiar territory of our own discipline. As used
here, this notion foregrounds

the way theories operate across a range of scales, from the
global and universal to the
local and particular. The climatologist Mike Hulme (e.g. Hulme,
2009) has done much to
argue for the importance of culture in understanding climate
change issues, engaging
publics at a wide variety of levels from the personal to the
global. Cultural geographers
have certainly taken up this challenge, developing specific
concerns with cultures of sci-
ence and scientific understanding, collaborations with artist
practitioners around issues
of place making, environmental understandings and public
engagement (e.g. Brace &
Geoghegan, 2010; Daniels & Endfield, 2009; Endfield &
Morris, 2012; Gabrys & Yusoff, 2012;
Miles, 2010). If as Hulme argues, sensitivity to cultural
specificity is central to effective
environmental engagement, then theorizing relevant to issues
such as climate change
must also be recognized as having spatio-temporal cultural
specificity. One might ask,
how can we develop theory within such environmental debates
which is modest enough
to engage specific experience yet imaginative enough to speak
creatively and construc-
tively beyond its home territory?
© 2016 informa uK limited, trading as taylor & Francis Group
CONTACT George revill george.re[email protected]
mailto:[email protected]
804 G. REvIll

Climate change and cultural geographies of theory
With a few very notable and high profile exceptions, it can be
argued that human geography
is a net importer of theory. Considering geography is such a
vibrant and well-established
discipline, it has been strongly argued that the discipline does
not develop its own theory
nearly often enough (Philo & Söderström, 2004, p. 106). Rather,
geography tends to be a net
importer of theory from elsewhere. As Massey (2005) argues in
the context of theory drawn
from both the human and physical sciences, geographers must
disentangle their own par-
ticular theoretical interests from the agendas and interests
‘provoked by their moments’ and
‘the debates of which they were a part’ (Massey, 2005, p. 19).
Massey argues that geographers
need to recognize that theories are worldly in the sense that they
are the products of geo-
graphically and historically specific sets of social, cultural and
political relations. In order to
use theory creatively, it needs to be critically situated rather
than taken at face value.
Attention to situating and historicizing theory has a particular
relevance to debates about
climate change. Academic debate concerning climate change has
distinctive ways of prob-
lematizing the local and the global, in terms of general
processes and particularly understand-
ings of process and change. Fleming, Jankovic, and Coen (2006)
show how issues of local and
global, the specific and the universal have been a constant point
of tension in the history and

science of weather. Recognizing this, Hulme (2008) borrows the
concept of cosmopolitanism
from latour in order to provide a theoretical context for the
plurality of climate change under-
standings and discourses operating across a variety of spatial
scales. However, the term cos-
mopolitan is not without its critics, or its historical, cultural and
geographical baggage. The
term has been roundly critiqued within post-colonial theory as
valorizing the privileged posi-
tion of highly mobile, educated, urban westerners. Outside the
metropolitan heartlands of the
developed North, the concept does not necessarily have much
purchase on the world, its
effects may be both oppressive and reactionary (Jazeel &
McFarlane, 2010).
Hulme’s use of the term cosmopolitanism highlights important
issues raised by, for exam-
ple, Edward Said and James Clifford, concerning how theories
and concepts move, travel
and translate from location to location and time to time. This
sense of situated theory still
does not seem to work often enough within the north as a driver
for theorizing. The south,
it seems, needs its situationally specific theory in order to gain
purchase on the world, but
northern theory remains all too often ‘universal’ and
universalizing in its cultural and geo-
graphical claims (Mignolo, 2002). It is all too easy for even
relatively enlightened theorizing
specific to issues such as climate change to fall into the trap of
devising local solutions to a
global problem defined around the theoretical framings of the
global north.

Interdisciplinarity and engagement
Within present day cultural geography, issues of engagement
and interdisciplinarity are very
much on the agenda and it is very likely that these issues will
be an increasing focus of
attention in the future. Engagement and interdisciplinarity are
particularly pressing issues
for work concerning climate change. It is easy to pick out
several reasons for this:
Firstly: the need to bring together a wide variety of disciplinary
knowledges in order to study
climate change in its physical and human complexity.
Secondly: the need to engage, consult, inform and converse with
publics in terms of both under-
standing the nature, trajectory and implications of the changes
that might take place and pro-
ducing viable and publicly agreeable futures in the knowledge
of change.
SOCIAl & CulTuRAl GEOGRAPHY 805
For cultural geographers, the concept of landscape is both a key
interdisciplinary term and
one which has considerable potential with regard to the study of
climate change in terms of
developing more modest and culturally specific theorizing
(Brace & Geoghegan, 2010). But
landscape itself is not an unproblematic or uncontested term
even within cultural geography
where it is variously a set of aesthetic codes and/or practices of
living and dwelling. One then

needs to add to this usage the very different ways in which the
term is used as a group of
techniques for planning and design in, for example, landscape
architecture, planning and
ecology. Terms such as ‘landscape’ can prove problematic when
cultural geographers work in
interdisciplinary contexts. The many different uses and
applications of the term landscape,
make it all too easy to talk past colleagues from other
disciplines even where we appear to be
using a shared vocabulary and conceptual framework. Given
Hulme’s appeal for geographers
to understand experiences of climate change as culturally and
geographically specific. It seems
evident that long-standing concepts such as ‘landscape’ like
more recent ones such as ‘cosmo-
politanism’ might offer universalizing false friends unless
considered carefully in historically
specific ways. Finding ways of understanding these and other
concepts as themselves cultural
materials with specific histories and usages is imperative if
cultural geography’s expertise is to
play a constructive part in debates around climate change.
Art engagement and worldly theory
Increasingly cultural geographers concerned with issues such as
climate change are working
with practicing artists. In turn, artists engaging with social
scientists draw on theories, con-
cepts and metaphors from social science and social and cultural
theory. varieties of perfor-
mance-based, socially engaged and publicly collaborative
creativity have become important
ways in which cultural geographers work with artists and others
to engage publics with

climate science and its consequences, see for example, the work
of organizations such as
Cape Farewell, Tipping Point or the well-known london-based
arts collective Platform
(Hawkins, 2013; Miles, 2010). This interaction is productive
and encouraging; however, it also
provides multiple opportunities for conceptual mismatch. In this
context, I found a rather
refreshing approach in a recent book by the composer,
improviser and champion of dem-
ocratic forms of music making, Sam Richards. Richards
discusses how musicians can engage
with issues of potentially cataclysmic change posed by the
present including that of anthro-
pogenically induced climate change. He says:
Zizek’s version of the present as ‘end times’ has inevitably
caused controversy. Some critics
have responded cautiously to his Slavic gloom, seeing it as
apocalypse rather than analytic,
and his method of argument – non sequential, irrational, uneven
– has also attracted criticism.
But these qualities are also those that can make him interesting
to artists for whom metaphor,
fragile connections can be prima material. As fact, and
definitely as prediction, it is possible to
question his idea of ‘end times’. As both image and text it has
tone and texture to recommend
it. (Richards, 2014, p. 37)
What I admire here is how Richards recognizes Zizek’s work as
flawed, problematic and a
contested way of understanding the world, yet at the same time
is able to celebrate its sit-
uatedness. Most telling of all, Richards is suggesting that the
‘flaws’ in Zizek’s theory, its

worldliness, open up the potential of this theory conditionally
and contingently in a creative
and productive way. Rather than deploying theory in spite of its
‘faults’ and constrained by
its limitations, Richards suggests we might actively cultivate its
worldliness and invite its
806 G. REvIll
rough, ambiguous open edges to create spaces which encourage
creative possibility. To this
extent, his thinking has echoes of what Mignolo (2013) might
call ‘thinking pluritopically’.
This might be understood as a dwelling within the worldliness
of theoretical entanglement,
rather than observing theory from a fixed point outside its
relationality. In this context,
worldliness is at least partly a product of the borders which
situate knowledge. Richards’
thoughts are both modest and expansive. An ethos of
sympathetic elaboration can take
Zizek’s ideas elsewhere and in the process interest, engage,
constitute and potentially enrol
new audiences and new publics.
To work constructively with concepts such as ‘end times’ or
indeed, the cosmopolitan or
landscape involves taking the cultural geography of theories and
concepts seriously in order
to work creatively with their limitations and possibilities. In
this context, the alternative
usages and definitions of terms and concepts, with their
potential for mismatch and con-
tradiction, become themselves poetic resources which engage

and animate imaginations.
This requires a cultural geography of theory which examines
how theory is made, remade
and operates in specific circumstances. It would be a cultural
geography that explores the
capacity of theories and concepts to animate, organize and
engage particular constituencies,
audiences and publics, whilst recognizing that such theories and
concepts actualize and
operate differently in various contexts. This would not so much
be a strategy for gaining
tighter control over the effects of theory operating on and in the
world, but a tactic which
might enable and encourage theory to flourish and elaborate
freely within the contexts in
which it is found and deployed. From this position, it might be
possible to produce collab-
orations between geographers, art practitioners and publics
which, for example, maximize
the opportunities for creative imaginings of climate change
futures by recognizing theoret-
ical situatedness whilst not defining or foreclosing possibility.
Conclusion
My wish is to see a greater sensitivity to the historical location
of theory, concepts and met-
aphors within cultural geography as rather more than critique in
the sense of defining,
regularizing and regulating meaning. Rather, I would like to see
us critically evaluate the
cultural-historical geographies of theory, its ‘worldliness’, as a
means of creative and con-
structive conceptual engagement. This might actually encourage
geographers – particularly
cultural geographers – to do more theorizing and perhaps

produce more geographically
sensitive theory for the discipline, particularly in relation to
such pressing issues as anthro-
pogenically induced climate change. In this context,
theorizations, concepts and metaphors
have to be cast upon the world as points of departure rather than
as attempts to control,
define and capture. This does not mean a relativistic free for all
but a very careful thinking
through of the ways in which the spatio-temporal specificity of
particular theories, concepts
and metaphors open up possibility, allowing them to resonate
and elaborate in and through
the world.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
SOCIAl & CulTuRAl GEOGRAPHY 807
References
Brace, C., & Geoghegan, H. (2010). Human geographies of
climate change: landscape, temporality,
and lay knowledges. Progress in Human Geography, 35, 284–
302.
Daniels, S., & Endfield, G. H. (2009). Narratives of climate
change: Introduction. Journal of Historical
Geography, 35, 215–222.
Endfield, G., & Morris, C. (2012). Cultural spaces of climate.
Climatic Change, 113, 1–4.

Fleming, J. R., Jankovic, v., & Coen, D. R. (2006). Intimate
universality: Local and global themes in the history
of weather and climate. Sagamore Beach, MA: Science History
Publications.
Gabrys, J., & Yusoff, K. (2012). Arts, sciences and climate
change: Practices and policies at the threshold.
Science as Culture, 21(1), 1–24.
Hawkins, H. (2013). For creative geographies: Geography,
visual arts and the making of worlds. london:
Routledge.
Hulme, M. (2008). Cosmopolitan climates: Hybridity. Foresight
and Meaning, Theory, Culture and Society,
27, 267–276.
Hulme, M. (2009). Why we disagree about climate change. New
York, NY: Cambridge university Press.
Jazeel, T., & McFarlane, C. (2010). The limits of responsibility:
A postcolonial politics of academic
knowledge production. Transactions of the Institute of British
Geographers, 35, 109–124.
Massey, D. (2005). For space. london: Sage.
Mignolo, W. D. (2002). The geopolitics of knowledge and the
colonial difference. South Atlantic Quarterly,
101, 57–96.
Mignolo, W. D. (2013). On pluriversality. Retrieved from
http://waltermignolo.com/on-pluriversality/
Miles, M. (2010). Representing nature: Art and climate change.
Cultural Geographies, 17, 19–35.
Philo, C., & Söderström, O. (2004). Social geography: looking
for society in its spaces. In G. Benko & u.

Strohmayer (Eds.), Human geography: A history for the 21st
century (pp. 105–138). london: Routledge.
Richards, S. (2014). The engaged musician: A manifesto.
Totnes: Centre House Press.
http://waltermignolo.com/on-pluriversality/
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IntroductionClimate change and cultural geographies of
theoryInterdisciplinarity and engagementArt engagement and
worldly theoryConclusionDisclosure statementReferences
https://doi.org/10.1177/1474474019886832
cultural geographies
2020, Vol. 27(1) 3 –21
© The Author(s) 2019
Article reuse guidelines:
sagepub.com/journals-permissions
DOI: 10.1177/1474474019886832
journals.sagepub.com/home/cgj
Underground imaginations,
environmental crisis and

subterranean cultural
geographies
Harriet Hawkins
Royal Holloway, University of London, UK
Abstract
It is claimed that our current environmental crisis is one of the
imaginations: we are in desperate
need of new means to understand relations between humans and
their environment. The
underground was once central to the evolution of Western
environmental imaginations. Yet,
this has waned throughout the 20th century as eyes and minds
turned up and out. After outlining
some of the history of the underground as a site from which to
evolve environmental imaginations,
the article will explore how the underground might propagate
environmental imaginations fit
for pressing contemporary environmental concerns. It will do so
using examples of three caves
evolved through an ongoing arts practice-based research
collaboration with artist Flora Parrott.
Exploring these three caves, I will explore how the underground
offers a powerful site for doing
the imaginative work that our current environmental crisis
requires, focusing in particular on
the challenges of engaging lively earths and deep times (pasts
and futures) that have become
commonplace in the Anthropocene. To close, the article begins
to reflect on the possibilities
of collaborative creative geographies as a means to rethink the
idea of the imagination within
geography, as not just something that might be studied but that
these creative practices might
enable the creation of much-needed new imaginations.

Keywords
art, caves, imagination, subterranean, underground,
Anthropocene, environment
Going underground?
Our current environmental crisis is, for many across the
humanities, ‘a crisis of the imagination’.
In other words, Western societies have failed to get to grips
with the changing nature of our envi-
ronmental relations and we urgently need new ways of
understanding nature and human relations
with it.1 Claire Colebrook goes so far as to argue that not since
Darwin’s Theory of Evolution has
Western environmental thinking faced such a wholesale
reckoning.2 Bron Szeresynski captures the
Corresponding author:
Harriet Hawkins, Department of Geography, Royal Holloway,
University of London, Egham TW20 0EX, UK.
Email: [email protected]
886832 CGJ0010.1177/1474474019886832cultural
geographiesHawkins
research-article2019
cultural geographies annual lecture
https://uk.sagepub.com/en-gb/journals-permissions
https://journals.sagepub.com/home/cgj
mailto:[email protected]
http://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.1177%2F14744740
19886832&domain=pdf&date_stamp=2019-11-07
4 cultural geographies 27(1)

common sentiment when he suggests we need to ‘reimagine
relations across the planet between
humans, and between humans and non-humans, and recompose
the lived time of human history
and the deep time of our home planet’.3 Indeed, the
Anthropocene, that contentious identification
of a new geologic epoch premised on scientific claims that
human-environmental impacts are
reaching geophysical levels, poses a series of imaginative
challenges. As Szeresynski asks, ‘how
can its seemingly incompatible scales of action and
consequence, event and outcome, and the deep
enfolding of human and inhuman agencies it pronounces be
given form or even imagined?’4 And
further, ‘how do we explore the thresholds where the social
meets the geologic, the inorganic, the
inhuman?’5 Furthermore, the very imagination of the
Anthropocene itself is one that has been up
for considerable debate, exploring the geographies and time–
spaces of this human centric concept.6
This article is concerned to advance the argument that the
underground (or subterranean) might
offer a valuable site at which to tackle some of this
contemporary imagination work. It does so by
way of a discussion of three underground sites encountered in
the course of an ongoing
collaboration with artist Flora Parrott. As it comes to a close,
the article reflects on the possibilities
of such creative collaborative geographies, both to study the
geographical imaginations of others
(as cultural geography has long done) and, perhaps, to attempt
through this practice-based work to
create much-needed new imaginations.
Histories of the subterranean in European Modernity

demonstrate how ‘although always pre-
sent, waves of underground imagery have tended to peak during
periods of especially rapid and
difficult change’.7 If the 20th century is largely agreed to have
witnessed a decentring of the under-
ground from our imaginations – as Western Eyes and minds
were turned up and out, by flight,
adventures in outer space and of late, by climate change and
other atmospheric preoccupations –
there is ample evidence within and beyond geography that a new
wave of going underground is
beginning to swell.8 Indeed, the recent underground ventures of
geographers and others have coun-
tered the upwards gaze of much of geography’s vertical turn –
focusing on skyscrapers, air-space,
mountains, the atmosphere and so on.9 Enhanced attention
downwards has included explorations
of the underground as a site of memory, the subterranean
infrastructure of our cities (past and
present), the vertical resource geographies of both expansionist
colonial pasts and the extractive
presents of a dematerialising economy, and the cultures and
histories of caving.10 Such accounts
explore how seeing, sensing and representing bring diverse
undergrounds into being. Yet, in the
midst of this direction of energies towards the subterranean and
its associated materialities such as
stone, soil and fuel, we have overlooked an important aspect:
the underground’s imaginative
force.11
Literary, cultural and visual histories have long identified
diverse imaginations of the under-
ground and have even explored the role they played in
constituting Western and non-Western
environmental imaginations.12 Key here has been Rosalind

Williams’ work on 19th- and early
20th-century European literature as forwarding a very modern
separation of nature and culture,
wherein ‘underground worlds have provided a prophetic view
into our environmental future . . .
furnish[ing] a model of an artificial environment from which
nature has been effectively ban-
ished’.13 Today, however, there appears to be space for a rather
different set of environmental
imaginations to emerge from underground spaces. The rise of
the Anthropocene has turned atten-
tion across arts and humanities and social sciences to the
geologic, inevitably associated with the
subterranean.14 Here, we find the material vitality of the Earth
itself is foregrounded in a reconcep-
tualisation of the agency of the inorganic, mineral and geologic
alongside the biological. Such that,
attending to the geologic has become synonymous with an
‘ungrounding’ of the Earth and a think-
ing (by way of ideas of deep time) about the human and beyond
human experience, with profound
implications. For those interested in political and economic
geographies acknowledging a ‘terra’
that was never firm has had far-reaching consequences for ideas
like territory, and the practices of
Hawkins 5
nation-states and corporations which often assume Earthly
backdrops that hold still for ownership
and exploitation,15 while for cultural geographers and
environmental humanities scholars, ques-
tions of life and the space–times of geologic life have come into
focus.16 Elizabeth Povinelli, for

example, proposes the concept of geontologies to attend to what
the ‘geos’ might offer in place of
long-held understandings of life and politics premised on
‘bios’,17 while others observe the need to
embrace ‘a newly poignant sense that our present is in fact
accompanied by deep pasts and deep
futures’.18
The following section of this article will parse these discussions
of the underground and the envi-
ronmental imagination in more detail, before turning to its
empirical core. This is constituted through
visits to three caves. These visits occurred in the context of an
ongoing collaboration developed with
artist Flora Parrott.19 The first cave, visited in summer 2015, is
in the Mendips in Somerset, England,
encounterd on a group caving trip organised by Flora. The
second is an artificial cave, created during
an artist’s workshop in a London gallery with the same group
that had been on that earlier subter-
rnean field-trip. The third cave the paper visits is Mother
Shipton’s cave, near Knaresborough in
North Yorkshire, England, to which Flora and I journeyed in
2019.20 Our collaboration has ranged
across a number of sites around the world and resulted in a
series of solo and collaborative outputs,
from installations and performances to seminars, book chapters
and now this article.21 What emerges
through the creative encounters with the underground discussed
here is an environmental imagina-
tion that, as I will explore, is fit for some of the current
imaginative challenges we face. It considers
the material and deep time intimacies and sensualities of human
bodies with/in millennia-old rocky
bodies, recent plastic ones and mineralogical deposits that are
merely months old. In doing so, it

explores how the underground, far from offering a site of
separation of nature/culture, as it did in the
19th century, is in fact a renewed site for their engagement and
intersection.
Underground imaginations
Many cultures and histories of the underground have mapped
the material and social dimensions
of subterranean natural forms, from caves and caverns to
infrastructural forms, including subways,
sewers, mines, tunnels and more recently bunkers, and of course
their materialities; stone, mud,
earth, rock and so on.22 Others have sought to sift through, as
Pike puts it, ‘the discarded fragments
of these past cultures of the underground’, for the
subterranean’s wider cultural valences.23 Along
with Pike’s work, it is perhaps Rosalind Williams’ modestly
titled but ambitious ‘Notes on the
Underground’ that offers the most extended and explicit
excavation of the historical place of the
underground in evolving environmental imaginations.24
Intersecting the literary undergrounds of
European Modernity with science and technology studies,
Williams’ volume locates the under-
ground as a visionary site for technological futures. The
defining aspect of these futures however,
is the underground’s ‘exclusion of nature – of biological
diversity, of seasons, of plants, of the sun
and the stars’.25 The subterranean laboratory, she writes, ‘takes
to an extreme, the ecological sim-
plification of modern cities where it sometimes seems that
humans, rats, insects and microbes are
the only remaining forms of wildlife’.26 This underground,
perhaps not unsurprisingly, given the
sources used, appears the apotheosis of that very modern

separation of nature and culture. More
recent engagements with the underground, however, especially
by way of conceptions of Earthly
liveliness and the Anthropocene’s Geologic Turn, demand the
embrace of environmental imagina-
tions diametrically opposed to this separation of nature and
culture. In contrast to Williams’ artifi-
cial undergrounds, the underground that emerges through
discussions of the geologic is animated
by a politics of life that is thoroughly entangled within the
geologic.
As Yusoff and Clarke make clear, we have inherited stories of a
‘planet so slow moving it could
just about be ignored – give or take an occasional, inopportune
shudder’, how they ask, do we
counter this ‘decisive stilling of the Earth in social and
philosophical thought’.27 For, the
Anthropocene demands an ‘expansion and tourquing’, of
‘conceptions of agency, intimacy and
politics’ that have been forwarded by thinking mostly about the
‘bios’.28 To take seriously humans
as a geologic force, as the Anthropocene requires we do,
suggests the need to guard against any
asymmetric rendering that fails to reflect on how geologic
forces might also ‘compose and dif-
ferentiate corporeal and collective biopolitical formations’.29
Elizabeth Povinelli’s geontologies
offer one means through which to begin this work, replacing a
logics of life premised on bios and
a biopolitics, with geos and their complex intersections of life

and non-life.30
Yet imagining Earthly inhuman excess, so different to and
excessive of the human and other
forms of biotic life as to unground our understandings of life
itself, is not an insignificant challenge
for Western environmental imaginations. Oftentimes it is in
non-Western world we have found
elaborations on these imaginations – whether that be in clashes
between the dreamings of Australian
Indigenous communities and the mining companies who see
them as mineral resources, or the
earth-beings recognised by Andean Farmers and Bolivian tin
miners, whose metabolisms are being
exhausted by open-cast mining practices.31 Others have turned
to art and aesthetics more widely.
Elizabeth Grosz has long arguing for the potential of art as
offering ‘new kinds of material practice’
for ‘an era of intensifying geophysical turbulence . . . new
genres and practices that tap into and
work with the shifting forces of contemporary earth’.32 If
questions of Earthly liveliness have
posed one set of imaginative challenges, a second set concerns
the space-times and temporalities
that such liveliness poses. We need, David Farrier argues, to
find the means to embrace, ‘a newly
poignant sense that our present is in fact accompanied by deep
pasts and deep futures’.33 How, he
and others ask, can we make sense of the complex times we are
now enfolded within, finding ways
to explore the ‘sensuality of deep time’, and a sense of the
‘depth and richness of our enfolding in
geologic intimacy?’34
It is perhaps of no real surprise that the underground offers a
rich site for encountering lively

matters and deep times. This emerges clearly even in historical
accounts of sublime caves and
caverns, as well as more recent ‘aesthetic geologies’ such as
MacFarlane’s journeying into the deep
time of multiple ‘underlands’ – from ice caves to vast undersea
mines – and a range of studies of
contemporary artistic practices.35 Such encounters are also
offered by accounts of the ‘sacrifice
zones’ of vast open-cast mining complexes, debates about
geological golden spikes, mantle strikes
and explorations of the foundational shakings of the 1755
Lisbon Earthquake and the ancient
painted caves of Lascaux.36 Attending to these iconic and
important sites often has a political
imperative, yet to only explore such ‘wonder-full’ underground
risks foreclosing the potential of
other kinds of subterranean spaces. Indeed, such charismatic,
iconic sites and events risk intensify-
ing the tendency cultural anthropologists Gisli Pálsson and
Heather Anne Swanson observe for the
geological to be ‘rendered as synonymous with the planetary’
and distant from embodied, intimate
and everyday experiences.37 This article counters this with a
focus on two of the more banal and
even kitschy caves encountered during my collaboration with
Flora. Rather than foreground these
‘wonder-less wonders’ (to borrow Daniel Defoe’s description of
these kinds of English scenery38)
over and against the more sublime experiences of the
underground, the article explores how the
ordinary and extraordinary become combined, creating
everyday, intimate undergrounds that offer
experiences of the sensuality of deep time.39 The intention is
less, following Pálsson and Swanson
to try to evolve a ‘grand theory of geosociology,’ than it is to
attend ‘to how geologic relations

matter differently to particular entities in particular locals’. In
this case attending to ‘the intertwin-
ing of bodies and biographies with earth systems and deep time
histories’ is to create deep time
intimacies that rethink nature–society relations and play with
questions of time, space, bodies and
underground processes and landscapes.40 We begin in a cave
system under the chalky Mendip Hills
in Somerset, Southern England.
Hawkins 7
The Artificial cave
The question of time in the Anthropocene is a testy one, for it
has become known as an ‘epically
controversial geologic epoch’ that causes ‘fatal confusions’ in
Western understandings of time and
temporality. It poses imaginative challenges, demanding, as
Ferrier writes, ‘a kind of deep time
negative capability, inducting us into the strangeness of a
temporality that vastly exceeds intergen-
erational memory’.41 Yet, as these discussions evolve, the
challenge of imagining distant pasts is
rendered even more complicated by the need to appreciate how
these vast spans also erupt into the
everyday: ‘the thickening of the present as a confluence of deep
time and deep futures’.42 What
follows explores these ideas firstly in the context of our
Mendips (Somerset, UK) caving experi-
ences, and secondly, through our reflections on these
experiences during a small event in a London
gallery. During this event, some 10 of the group that went
caving created an artificial cave that

became a site prompting reflections on the earlier caving
experience (Figure 1). Discussion probes
the tensions between caving bodies ‘in the flow,’ caught in the
immediacy of the experience, and
bodies that are caught within millennia-old rocky bodies, as
well as more recent plastic ones. In
doing so, it reflects on the imaginative work of addressing an
‘in-human agency that is not and
cannot be fully extensive with the human domain, however
inclusively this is imagined’.43
Deep time intimacies?
Damp, chilly and boiler-suited up we squeezed, crawled and
scrambled our way through tunnels
and water filled channels for hours. After twisting ourselves
through a tight passage, corkscrewing
bodies pulling with arms and pushing with legs, we lay on a
smooth rocky surface, its shallow
incline mirroring the pitch of the roof. We turn our head-lamps
off, and prone on our backs listen
in the dark to our guide telling us that these rocks would send
compasses haywire, that some of the
sediments have a reverse polarity, they are remnant magnetisms
from paleomagnetic events.
Caves and human bodies are ontologically connected. A cave is
defined as a cave if it is open to
the surface and large enough to admit a human body, vugs,
hollows and holes into which humans
cannot enter, are not caves. If caves are shaped, as Sarah Cant
puts it, ‘through sensing caving
Figure 1. The artificial cave.
Source: Photo (author’s own).

bodies’, then oftentimes accounts observe how, as a practice,
caving often brings us to our bodies
in particular ways.44 Stories of caving have become
synonymous with a post-phenomenological
accounting of landscapes, bodies and worlds. These are stories
of the becoming of bodies, matter,
textures and light (or rather no natural light), stories of spaces,
surfaces and sensations narrated
through patterns of contact and non-contact, and our own
explorations where no exception.45
Geographical accounts of caving map intimate spatialities of, in
Cant’s words, ‘flux between
human geographies of exploration and encounter, and physical
geographies of space within rock:
lime, water and calcite’.46 Senses are heightened by the
darkness, physical challenges and different
environments of the cave, destabilising bodily presence and
boundaries as bodies evolve into
heightened sensory devices, sensitised to changing surfaces,
shifting light scales and to the move-
ment and temperature of air.47
Oftentimes, the temporalities of our intimacies of bodies of
flesh and rock, of skin and sediment,
were those of being caught in the present, as we scrabbled
around, inelegantly, amateurishly, absorbed
in working out where to put our feet and hands in the here and
now. At other moments, waiting our
turns poised at the top of a slippery waterfall whose base we
could not see, or queuing up nervously at
the entrance to a narrow corkscrewing tunnel only navigable
one way, time seemed to stretch out end-

lessly, defying my desire to get it over with. The shifting time
frames of our sensing-caving bodies as
they negotiate intimacies with rock, water and various forms of
technology (harnesses, hats, carabi-
ners, Wellington Boots) are enfolded with what we might call
after Farrier the ‘sensuality of deep
time’.48 For alongside these embodied experiences of lived
time is the infusion of caving with what
Cant observes as the ‘immense geological presence’, while for
Rob MacFarlane, to journey into under-
lands is to journey into deep time.49 Edwards finds caving time
to be a time of thresholds:
when a breakthrough comes, ordinary time stops, as they
[cavers] face the enormity of an encounter with
deep, geologic time in a space, which may, on some rare
occasions, never have been encountered before.
This threshold represents the persistence of the sublime in
caving culture, framed and set off by the
ordinary of what proceeds and indeed follows it.50
Our Mendip caving was by contrast very ordinary, beginners
caving. We made no breakthroughs,
we found no new passages, yet we did pause often to reflect on
the press of geology, on the feeling
of being amidst millennia, smoothing with hands rocks shaped
by thousands of years of running
water, seeing compasses dragging off north by remnant
magnetisms. Our perhaps quite predictable
caving experiences kept in play together the experiences of
being in our bodies and being within
rocky bodies; the immediate presentness of scrabbling climbing
and negotiating always entangled
with the temporalities of deep time.
Futures-excesses

We stand around in a slightly dusty gallery space in East
London and ponder the plastic sections,
occasionally consulting the line map of the caves we had
explored a month or so earlier. We trade
memories trying to recreate our journeys and experiences
underground. Hexagonal in section and
joined together with a series of wing nuts the tubular sections of
the artificial cave are made of
fibre glass, matt black on the outside and oddly dirty beige
within (Figure 2). We try to recall the
subterranean spaces, playing out bends and cork-screws with
our bodies, fixing long sections and
tight turns together to mimic these remembered geologies.
As we create new artificial caves on the gallery floor, a
geological god-trick of sorts, we reflect
on the limitations of this training cave. The plastic sections we
are playing with have been fash-
ioned not for us but rather to train want-to-be-cavers and cave-
rescue teams to master small spaces.
Hawkins 9
We muse on the limits of this plastic training ground; you can
see the end before you go in; you are
never really below the surface; nothing is going to fall and trap
you; the enclosure is within milli-
metres of plastic not millennia of rock; you can always be
saved, rescued by aid of a screw-driver
and some blocks of wood.
The artificial cave was not dark. Its surfaces have been worn
slick in some places, in others the

chicken wire that forms its structure has been revealed, making
sharp edges that catch skin, clothes
and hair. It is not the earthly damp smell of the caves, but an
antiseptic, sterile smell, kitchen
cleaner, mixed with sweat and nerves, these tight places might
be in a safely known suburb of
London rather than within volumes of rock, but they still made
us feel a little panicked at times, as
well as rather silly (Figure 3).
As we explored and continually remade our artificial caves, we
tended to frame our reflections
through what was lacking. As we slithered and grubbed our way
through the beige plastic of our
geologic forms, we observed how while sometimes tight, and
even a little panic inducing, it felt
safe, it felt known. It was nothing, we agreed, like caving. Yet,
in the imaginative space opened up
between our caving in the Mendips and this artificial cave what
emerged was less a paucity of
sensory experiences and rather a more attuned awareness of the
geologies we had been exploring
then and now, their differences and also their similarities.
Fibre glass – a composite of glass-reinforced plastic – is an
interesting material from which to
make a fake cave. Our artificial chthonic experiments led us to
tell lithic and strata stories that
further complicated the enfolding of deep time pasts, and here
futures, in a thickening of the pre-
sent.51 If being amid the rock was to be in a space that felt
dense, full and textured with time, then
it might have been thought that plastic – that modern material,
convenient, disposable – might
create the exact opposite sense.52 Yet if plastic was long a
utopic material of timeless smoothness,

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