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Roy Boyne is the Standard Issues Editor of Theory, Culture & Society and
a board member of the recent journal Creative Industries. He has pub-
lished books on French philosophy, the sociology of art and cinema, and
cultures of risk, and is currently writing a book for Sage on regional and
international cultural strategy. [email: rdboyne@gmail.com]
The most recent book by Arlie Russell Hochschild, The Outsourced Self:
Intimate Life in Market Times, like her previous work, concentrates on
the relationship between intimate life and the market or, in other words,
between emotions and capitalism. The Outsourced Self is obviously a
development in the eld of sociology of intimacy and sociology of emo-
tions; however, it may also be considered as an interesting diagnosis of
contemporary western culture in general. In a similar fashion to her
earlier books, The Managed Heart or The Commercialization of
Intimate Life, in The Outsourced Self Hochschild investigates how
deeply economic logic penetrates thinking about the family, love rela-
tionships and, as the title suggests, ourselves and our self-identities. In the
following, some new results of Hochschilds study as presented in
The Outsourced Self will be analysed.
The book begins with an introduction, in which the author builds a
contrast between two ideal types. The rst one, the villager, is based on
the memories of Hochschilds family history from the beginning of the
20th century. The second type is drawn from the observations of con-
temporary culture, in which people have become outsourcers. By creating
these ideal types of the villager and the outsourcer, Hochschild builds
two contrasts. To be precise, the rst is between the culture based on
spontaneous help (the logic of just do as the author puts it) and the
spirit of a gift, whereas the second is built between the culture of calcu-
lated transactions and the spirit of consumption. The author
The rst chapter of the book revolves around the topic of love coaches
and dating via the internet. The sociologist tells a story of Grace, who
decides to search for a soul mate on the web and hires Evan, a love coach
whose task is to help her achieve her goal. Hochschild presents statistics
which show the great scale of e-dating and the popularity of love coach-
ing. In this light, Grace is not a kind of special case or a curious exception
but an example of a wide phenomenon, which is still growing larger and
stronger. In fact, a lot has been said about online relationships, especially
about their dangers; yet Hochschilds perspective seems innovative and
original as she concentrates on the way in which economic logic invades
love life. The rst level of such an invasion is the language, especially
the language of metaphors. Evan claims that searching for love is
like searching for a job (p. 24), and that the internet is a love mall
(p. 25). However, there are also further and deeper mechanisms, one of
which is branding. Love coaches suggest that people should create their
virtual images to attract as many viewers as possible. Their photos and
their notes on the web should be the brand which will enable them to
reach the appropriate target eectively. By an appropriate target Evan
and other love coaches mean stimulating the interest of someone with the
same or a higher rank. Rank is another mechanism of the market invad-
ing love. People who have their accounts on e-dating websites get marks
that depend on their age, physical appearance, social status, number of
children, etc. Therefore, a person who hires a love coach should observe
the rise of his or her RoI (return on investment rate) (p. 27). RoI shows
how many high-rank people have been attracted by ones prole.
Although Grace does not get fully absorbed by branding, ranks
and RoI ratings, and eventually her adventure with love coaching and
e-dating is successful, Hochschild argues that economic logic makes
people believe in dangerous illusion. In particular, one aspect of such
an illusion is that there is always someone who will fully meet their
expectations, just as there is always a product, be it a television set or
a car, which will respond to ones needs if one searches with enough
precision. The sociologist states that people are told to train their atten-
tion on nding not making connection. They were preparing to
become consumers, not creators, of love (p. 41). Furthermore,
Hochschild claims that, according to love coaches, creating a good
brand, attaining a high rank and an eort to search is enough to achieve
a successful relationship. Therefore, building up love is not as important
as nding it, which, according to Hochschild, is a disturbing illusion that
the market brings into thinking about love and intimate life.
Love coaching does not only involve interfering in ones intimate life
and implementing a market logic in it. An even more striking example of
this process is the functioning of the company called Family360, which
appears as a response to the success of Management360, a service that
aims to improve the eciency of big companies. As Hochschild puts it,
[a] cycle eect gets going: The more anxious and isolated we are and
the less help we receive from nonmarket sources, the more we feel
tempted to ll the void with market oerings . . . . greater isolation
results in greater demand for market services and professionals life
coaches, party planners, photograph-album assemblers to ll in
whats missing. (p. 222)
Despite all the valuable aspects of The Outsourced Self, the book also
has some weak points that should not be ignored. The rst issue is the
lack of a theoretical approach. Although in The Managed Heart the
sociologist creates an interesting theory of emotions, her recent books
seem to be examples of a withdrawal from sophisticated theoretical
accounts. The second drawback is that Hochschild strictly limits her
dialogue concerning contemporary intimacy with other authors. It
would be very interesting and stimulating to read her (probably critical)
opinion of Giddens Transformation of Intimacy or (perhaps in a more
approving tone) Baumans Liquid Love, not to mention the work of Eva
Illouz, who like Hochschild is strongly interested in relations between
emotions and capitalism. However, the above-mentioned factors (which
for some people may not be issues at all) do not change the total value of
The Outsourced Self. The book is still an important diagnosis of disturb-
ing transformations in contemporary culture and helps in understanding
the world in which human beings live.
Acknowledgement
This review was funded by the Polish National Science Centre on the basis of decision
number DEC-2012/05/N/HS1/03338.