In Paying for Labors of Love, Judith Shulevitz, reviews The Outsourced Self by Arlie Russell Hochschild, an ethnographic psychologist. Hochschild’s latest work delves into the increasing demand for what she terms “outsourcing the self”, that is, the growing practice of paying strangers to provide deeply intimate and emotional services. She speaks with love coaches, wedding planners, surrogate mothers, nannies, household consultants and elder-care managers, as well as their clients, to gain a deeper understanding of what it feels like to be on either side of the exchange and how economic and cultural shifts have added to this increase in “outsourcing”.
Read the entire article here: Paying for Labors of Love.