The concepts of public and private have been central to recent analysis in a number of areas. The evolution of public-private sectors has been a major theme in urban studies and certainly a major theme in feminist studies. One of the reasons for this centrality, as well as one of the frustrations in using a public-private framework of analysis, is the imprecise nature of this conceptualization – both rich in insights and full of ambiguities. Urban researchers, who have often used this conceptualization either in real or virtual spatial terms, can profit from the kind of debate and analysis of the public-private conceptualization that is contained in the book edited by Susan Boyd : Challenging the Public/Private Divide: Feminism, Law and Public Policy. The contributors to the book examine a whole variety of areas of public policy and law – day care, homework, tax policy, maternity benefits, child welfare, child custody – under a sort of double lens; how does the public-private interface play out in the particular area and what are the consequences for women and particularly for specific groups of women.
One of the major themes that emerges in the book is the inadequacies of the current understandings of the public-private divide to take into account the needs and specific conditions of doubly marginalized groups of women. Koshan (Aboriginal women), Ocran (homeworkers in the garment industry), Iyer (low-income, non-white), Buss (Third World women) have been negatively affected by public policy – relating to violence in the case of Koshan, maturity benefits in the case of Iyer and non-regulation of home work in the case of Ocran. It is necessary to look more broadly at the patterns of marginalization and address these fundamental issues rather than focus uniquely on issues of the public-private interface.
One set of contributions looks at recent policy and legal questions as indicating trends to privatization or reprivatization. Armstrong looks at the postwar period of the growing public sector and contrasts it with the more recent period of a retreat from the public.
