What is truly remarkable are the ways in which dominant domestic ideologies and practices have become globally hegemonic as a result of colonial and capitalist expansion and modernization, even as they have entered into contestation with other local forms of domesticity. Class, race, and geographic location place heavy inflections on domesticity, and yet, like love, childhood, and death, the domestic is most often portrayed as transcending all specifics, or rather as blurring all distinctions in the warm glow of its splendor. Ultimately, the enormous attention that domesticity has received, and the enshrinement of heterosexuality therein, has severely stymied the representation and even recognition of other forms of establishing intimacy and affiliation.

This is an excerpt from Rosemary Marangoly George’s entry in Keywords for American Cultural Studies (p. 92).