Do you struggle to find equilibrium between excelling at work and spending productive, quality time with loved ones at home? With the technology that is available in the twenty first century, it is now possible for educated professionals to decide whether they would like to work from home and collaborate with family members to meet work demands. Alesia Montgomery is an African American Ethnographer who wrote “Kitchen Conferences and Garage Cubicles: The Merger of Home and Work in the 24-7 Global Economy”. This study was one of many published in 2008’s book entitled The Changing Landscape of Work and Family in the American Middle Class: Reports From the Field, which focused on “providing insights into the changing nature of working families in the United States” (1008). Montgomery’s main argument is that today’s modern society and global economy have enabled families to “merge work and home in quasi-entrepreneurial ways” (1018), which will in turn deepen the attachment between family members. Her secondary claim is that the merging of these two worlds does not come without a downside; your home will no longer “serve as a refuge from job pressures” (1018) and job demands may be “made more invasive by the use of innovative communication technology” (1019). The main purpose of this essay is to identify and analyze Montgomery’s main and secondary arguments, to describe two types of support she uses, how they help her claims, and to identify her intended audience.
Montgomery proposes that “transformations in gender relations, management strategies, and technological practices” (1018) play integral roles in the opportunities for families to decide how to combine or balance their home lives with work demands. She goes on to state that women’s access to equal education and equal employment opportunities have “expanded the possibilities for spousal collaboration in technical professions” (1010), and that being able to collaborate on work projects at
Cited: Montgomery, Alesia. "Kitchen Conferences and Garage Cubicles: The Merger of Home and Work in the 24-7 Global Economy." Everything 's An Arguments With Readings. 5th ed. Boston/ New York: Bedford/ St. Martin 's, 2010. 1008-022. Print.