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Overlooking the historical development of capitalism, labor and family has been separated as institutions very different from each other. Labor is defined according to the economy and production, while the family is defined according to relationships, sex and sexuality, hence reproduction (Tyrkkö: 1999:78). Tyrkkö (1999) thinks spaces of production and reproduction are intimately interconnected and thereby influences everyday life. When the starting point for the analysis is in the everyday, the border of the dichotomy production/reproduction must be crossed, since the human being lives in a world where the separation does not exist. Therefore the everyday can only be studied in a condition of in-betwenness where both production and reproduction are present (Ibid). Rose (1993) uses the concept of paradoxical spaces to overcome the dualistic relationship that exists between the categories of man and woman. The movement between them, therefore, is not that of dialectic, of integration, of a combinatory, or of difference, but is the tension of contradiction, multiplicity and heteronomy (de Laurentis: 1987: 26 in Rose: 1993: 140).
These thoughts have come to be central for the empirical analysis of my thesis, a thesis that examines the gendered everyday life in relation to the cultivation of rubber in the village of Baan HatNyao, Laos. The empirical analysis demonstrates that gendered everyday life cannot be separated into spheres of production or reproduction. The villagers are also more than representations of their sex; they also belong to different generations and clans, as well as to the ethnic group of Hmong. Hmong, gender relations, age, clan and spaces of the everyday, are therefore categories constructing gendered practices in the rubber village. Gendered everyday life can therefore be considered as paradoxical spaces.