Mothering and Sociology

This pioneering book, in considering intellectually disabled peoples lives sets out a care ethics model of disability that outlines the emotional caring sphere, where love and care are psycho-socially questioned, the practical caring sphere, where day-to-day care is carried out and the socio-political caring sphere, where social intolerance and aversion to difficult differences are played out. It does so by discussing issue based everyday life, such as family, relationships, media representations and education in an evocative and creative manner. This book draws from an understanding of how intellectual disability is represented in all forms of media, a feminist ethics of care, and capabilities, as well as other theories, to provide a critique and alternative to the social model of disability as well as illuminate care-less spaces that inhabit all the caring spheres. The first two chapters of the book provides an overview of intellectual disability, the debates and outlining of the model. Having begun to develop an innovative theoretical framework for understanding intellectual disability and being human, the book moves onto empirical and narrative driven issue based chapters. The following chapters builds on the emergent framework and discusses the application of particular theories in three different substantive areas: education, mothering and sexual politics. A concluding remarks draws together the common themes across the applied chapters and links them to the overarching theoretical framework.

An important read for all those studying and researching intellectual or learning disability, this book will be an essential resource in sociology, philosophy, criminology (law), social work, education and nursing in particular.

In this paper we discuss how a group of young mothers, some married or common-law and some single, who were participants in a focus group that was part of a larger project on participation in community-based child and family programs, engage in empowered mothering by resisting the discourse that "a young mother is a social problem." This discourse includes the components "A baby having a baby" and "A young mum=poverty=a bad mum." These young mothers describe their parents' group as a context that fosters a sense of belonging, and feelings of empowerment. These young mothers are able to resist this discourse in a context of support, a context that is vital for these, and other, young mothers. Virtually all mothers are subject to the ideology of what it is to be a "good mother" (Ruddick, 2002). In North America this can include being "self-sac-rificing, cheerful and loving" (Middleton, 2006: 73). Recent writings about mothering rej...

En los últimos años hemos vivido y estamos viviendo un conjunto de transformaciones en las formas de reproducción y filiación que han sido acompañadas por similares transformaciones en los estudios so- bre ellas desde la antropología.
A principios de la década de 1990, las obras de Ginsburg y Rapp (1991), Strathern (1992), Bouquet (1993) y Ragoné (1994), entre otras, iniciaban un nuevo camino en el estudio de la reproducción y la filiación marcado por la expansión de la reproducción asistida.
Como señalaron Ginsburg y Rapp en una obra posterior (1995) uno de cuyos objetivos era transformar el tradicional análisis antropológico de la reproducción, las «nuevas» formas de reproducción asistida, a través de tecnologías de reproducción (TRA), subrogación o adopción, requerían de nuevos paradigmas teóricos deabordaje. en una línea que vinculaba sus orígenes a las obras de S. Colen (1986, 1989, 1990 y 1995) sobre reproducción estratificada, J. Collier y S. Yanagisako (1987) sobre género y parentesco y A. Anagnost (1991) sobre violencia eufemística, F. Ginsburg y R. Rapp (1995) propusieron abordar la reproducción y la filiación teniendo en cuenta la existencia de personas con capacidad para reproducirse, criar y enculturar y otras incapacitadas para ello. si bien las autoras no circunscribían, explícitamente, su propuesta de transformación del tradicional análisis antropológico de la reproducción al análisis de la maternidad, su reconocimiento en el prefacio de la misma obra de haberse «criado», antropológicamente, a caballo entre la teoría feminista y el activismo social, y las contribuciones incluidas en la obra —mayoritariamente centradas en diversas formas de maternidad—, convirtieron la misma en una de las más importantes aportaciones a la antropología del maternaje (anthropology of mothering), definido como el trabajo de madre o de maternar.
M. Walks (2011), en uno de los más recientes estados de la cuestión sobre la antropología del maternaje realizado para prologar una obra coral, luego de señalar que la antropología ha estudiado desde el principio a las madres, la maternidad, el maternaje y el trabajo de las madres, ubica el origen del incremento sistemático del interés y la producción sobre el tema en la obra de S. Kitzinger (1978) y vincula su expansión a los estudios de género y parentesco (Collier y Yanagi- sako, 1987) y de la antropología de la reproducción (Ginsburg y Rapp, 1991 y 1995).

This paper utilizes feminist phenomenology to explore how contemporary representations of autism, and autism mothers, are integrally caught up in western (and now globalizing) understandings of health, happiness and the “normative” human.  I examine the historical emergence of “autism mothers” as a new category of identity, and track this alongside a global autism mother recruitment campaign to get at what’s “behind” this phenomenon.  I argue that emerging autism mother figures like the feminine warrior are new and contradictory neoliberal subjectivities that contain a most “hateful” unethical and increasingly global duty: the reinscription and intensification of the “normal” human as bourgeois, nondisabled, white and western, and the “new” femininity as “naturally” nurturing and necessarily instrumental.  Even more, these new subjectivities are governmental, operating as western colonialist translations of happiness, compelling compulsory participation in increasingly limited, viol...

Questo articolo tenta di tracciare alcune traiettorie che, seppur limitate da oggettive esigenze di spazio editoriale, intendono introdurre la prospettiva antropologica attorno al femminile sul piano ideologico, discorsivo e delle pratiche quotidiane. Una prospettiva che non può sfuggire lo sguardo sullo specifico materno, così strettamente e culturalmente correlato al femminile, che ho voluto affrontare a partire dal mio campo etnografico sull’esperienza adottiva delle donne che si sono trovate nell’impossibilità di generare e nella condizione di ‘ammaternare’ un bambino ‘Altro’ da sé. Un’esperienza che si configura a tutti gli effetti come ‘laboratorio a cielo aperto’ dell’azione categoriale delle nozioni di ‘natura’ e ‘cultura’ sugli individui e sulla comunità sociale.

This book analyzes Nancy Chodorow’s canonical book The Reproduction of Mothering, bringing together an original essay from Nancy Chodorow and a host of outstanding international scholars—including Rosemary Balsam, Adrienne Harris, Elizabeth Abel, Madelon Sprengnether, Ilene Philipson, Meg Jay, Daphne de Marneffe, Alison Stone and Petra Bueskens—in a mix of memoir, festschrift, reflection, critical analysis and new directions in Chodorowian scholarship. In the 40 years since its publication, The Reproduction of Mothering has had a profound impact on scholarship across many disciplines including sociology, psychoanalysis, psychology, ethics, literary criticism and women’s and gender studies.  Organized as a “reproduction of mothering scholarship”, this volume adopts a generationally differentiated structure weaving personal, political and scholarly essays.

This book will be of interest to scholars across the social sciences and humanities. It will bring Nancy Chodorow and her canonical work to a new generation showcasing classic and contemporary Chodorowian scholarship.

Motherhood is not an inconsequential and ideologically neutral individual role in society. Instead, " motherhood " is considered, according to critical and cultural scholars and theorists, to be both a complex set of experiences individuals embody and a symbolic social institution that has been used to regulate human behavior through cultural norms and social scripts that are discursively struggled over across history. The institution of motherhood is imbedded in cultural, economic, and legal systems and is a central consideration in how we come to define the domestic and public spheres. Black feminist, liberal feminist, radical feminist, Marxist, queer, postcolonial, and decolonial theories are mobilized by critics in communication to investigate motherhood as a complex symbolic interlocutor. Critical scholars from these divergent theoretical and political traditions analyze motherhood as an experience, a practice, a performance, and/or an ideology. Because of the importance of the concept of mothering in society, examining discourses about motherhood is a central concern for critical and cultural communication scholars who are interested in the formation of gender and sexual scripts and the maintenance of racial and class-based systems of oppression.

‘Until Our Hearts Are on the Ground’: Aboriginal Mothering, Oppression, Resistance and Rebirth. D. Memee Lavell-Harvard and Jeannette Corbiere Lavell, eds, 2006. Toronto: Demeter Press.
Janani: Mothers, Daughters, Motherhood. Rinki Bhattacharya, ed., 2006. New Delhi: Sage.

This chapter offers a reflective autobiographical account of my experience of being told not to breastfeed in a local swimming pool ostensibly for "hygiene" reasons and ultimately―for the organisation changed their story―for "safety" reasons. I explore the scholarly literature on breasts and breastfeeding, especially as it relates to the public/private distinction on which the controversy implicitly rests, making the case that it is our collective inability to symbolically place breasts―are they sexy or are they maternal? Are they natural or are they medicinal?― that renders “public” breastfeeding so challenging. I make two further arguments: first, breastfeeding controversies are increasingly defined by what the sociologists Michael Bittman and Jocelyn Pixley call “pseudomutuality” (1997, p. 81), or, by a pretense of mutuality, such that discriminatory individuals and organisations routinely claim to be “pro-breastfeeding” when they are not and; second, claiming our right to feed in public is part of a broader maternal politics of embodied citizenship shifting extant norms premised on the ideal of the unencumbered, autonomous subject. Reconfiguring the image of the ideal-typical citizen as one who may be pregnant with, birthing and/or nurturing another is part of this politics. In this view, breastfeeding “in public” is literally a transformative “coming out” redefining public space. This chapter is part of the book Mothering at the Margins by Jenny Jones, Marie Porter and Lisa Raith. It can be purchased here: http://www.cambridgescholars.com/mothers-at-the-margins

This paper is about mothering an intellectually disabled child identified with special educational needs. It specifically looks at the parent partnership rhetoric that has dominated UK government policy and directives for nearly three decades and yet research suggests parents and more often mothers have to battle to be recognised as legitimate experts. This paper engages with sociological analysis as it highlights via qualitative narratives that mothers are weighed down by the sheer number of professionals
involved in their day-to-day life. Moreover, mothers whose
children are not identified in the early years are often blamed in the first instance for playing a part in their child’s difficult behaviour. This research ultimately suggests that partnership work is important and necessary for practice within health, education and social work professions, not least of all because the emotional roller-coaster that mothers experience during the assessment and statementing process is disabling.

Academic Journals are an established forum for educators and researchers to disseminate information within their field. Journals act as mediators of knowledge, advancing the canons within specific areas of study. There are currently two journals that focus on motherhood from an interdisciplinary perspective and one that focuses on fathers. However, none of these determine a specific foundational definition of what the field is, what it hopes to study, and how it will advance itself. Rather, these journals are general collections of a great number of things that touch on varying subjects regarding motherhood and fatherhood. This thesis argues for the creation of a fourth journal, The Journal of Mother Studies (JourMS), which will posit a foundational definition of what Mother Studies is and what a theory of this particular field would look like. This peer reviewed, international, interdisciplinary, open-access, digital humanities hybrid project, aims to serve as a nexus for ongoing explorations within the emerging field of Mother Studies as defined by the interdisciplinary study that devotes itself to the issues, experiences, topics, history, and culture of mothers, mothering, and motherhood.

In his work The Exclusive Society, Young (1999) maps a move from inclusion to exclusion during modernity through to late modernity. However, he suggests the mode of exclusion is one that shifts and is also dependent on ones ‘credit rating’ from the wealthy, to the ‘dangerousness of the incarcerated’. I suggest that there too is a ‘credit rating’ for people who have learning impairments, only their ‘credit’ is calculated within a mental ability, aesthetic beauty and ‘appropriate’ social interaction frame. This ‘credit rating’ affects parents of an impaired child, the child and the extended family, and is therefore calculated on a continuum of ‘normal’ family practices. It is this continuum of ‘normality’ that renders the family ‘disabled’, difficult and excluded, with a very low ‘credit rating’ in terms of ‘worth’ regarding inclusion into mainstream society.

The key themes that run through this study are that of disappointment, denial, and social exclusion/inclusion, without exception all three are experienced at different levels privately, personally and publicly. It is the emotional and practical difficulties experienced that affect the mental health, social relationships, career prospects, and general everyday living conditions for parents of children with impairments. However, an equally important issue is also apparent in the analysis of policy documents and cultural discourses. Denial of difficulty is found rhetorically in policies on ‘inclusive education’ and how the ‘public other’ responds to difficulty is in their aversion to ‘difficult difference’ and the ‘difficult other’. Policies on education provision and implementation directly affect children identified with special educational needs (SEN). These children have a right to be educated in a way that is best suited to them as individuals. The contradictions that occur between the theories and policies imply the experience at a local level dramatically affects the emotional and practical lives of the families involved. This is based on the heterogeneity of provision at the local level and wider society reactions to difference and disability. The privileging of the academic and the ‘normal’ can exclude the child with SEN and their families from engaging in a so-called ‘inclusive’ society.

This study demonstrates that parents are disappointed, excluded, compromised and frustrated both emotionally and in response to expectations of support. However in the face of this I reveal, that even though parents have been depressed, taken anti-depressants, turned to alcohol, felt suicidal, suffered in their relationships or wanted to desert their children, many have fought the health and education system, shown resilience, set up self help groups, complained and most importantly demonstrated that their children are worth fighting for.

This paper seeks to contribute to an understanding of the changing nature of support and information-seeking practices for women in the transition to first-time motherhood. In the context of increasing digitalisation, the significance of new virtual spaces for parenting is discussed. The paper demonstrates how women seek out alternative forms of expertise (specifically, non-medical expertise) and social support. The author argues for the importance of ‘intimate mothering publics’ through which women gather experiential information and practical support. These publics can act as a space for women to ‘test’ or legitimise their new identity as a mother. Intimate mothering publics are particularly useful for thinking about the meaning-making practices and learning
experiences that occur during intimate online and face-to-face interactions. A variety of types of online support may be used during pregnancy. Surreptitious support in particular involves users invisibly receiving advice, information and reassurance that might otherwise be lacking. Access to intimate mothering publics is motivated by a number of factors, including feelings of community or acceptance, the desire to be a good mother or parent, emotional support and the need for practical and experiential advice.

"A Breastfeeding practice among lactating mothers’ is an attractive and important area of research among the students of medical science as well as social sciences. Breastfeeding practices not only depend on the lactating productivity of the woman but also on their geographical and environmental conditions. Present research focused on two dimensions of breastfeeding, (1) is prevailing level of awareness among lactating women about significance of breastfeeding and (2) is the actual practices
adopted by these women of Noor Pur Shahan, Islamabad. To conduct this research a sample of 138  lactating mothers was systematically drawn. To collect the required data, a structured questionnaire was implemented after pre-testing. Results show maximum participation was from the women of age group 23-
26 years. Findings of the study demonstrated that 93.4% respondents confirmed that breastfeeding is healthy for newborn and out of total, 94.2% of the respondents have breastfed their newborns too, whereas only 33% of these mothers fed their newborns up to 06 months and discontinue afterwards and 52% had breastfed their newborns from 06 months to 30 months maximum. Responses against knowledge questions about the use of liquids other than milk showed that, 58.7% women opined that water and other supported liquids are not safe for newborn, and 33% responded otherwise. The low/shortage of milk was cited as
major reason 44.9% factor behind not completing at least 06 months of breastfeeding. Whereas 48% of the respondents mentioned, doctor as the main source of information regarding breastfeeding importance. This research shows that current practices of breastfeeding in Noor Pur Shahan are quite similar to the existing findings studies conducted previously in Asia.
"

Why do many second-generation Korean-American mothers, who often have negative memories of growing up under strict, intensive, achievement-oriented “tiger mothering”—a term popularized by Amy Chua’s bestselling Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother (Chua 2011)—reproduce certain aspects of this parenting style in raising their own children? What drives some
mothers to replicate aspects of this critical, controlling, competitive style of tiger parenting in some instances, and to renounce or renegotiate it in others? Contesting the stereotype of Asian-American women as “tiger mothers,” this chapter examines the wide range of mothering practices within this heterogeneous group.  https://rowman.com/ISBN/978-1-4985-0363-1

In a society such as Northern Ireland, where the conventional gendered family occupies a central position in collective imaginaries (Anderson, Ashe),  strongly gendered expectations persist that mothers play the role of ‘protectors of the family’, in contrast to men and fathers, whose roles are more connected to ‘protectors of the nation’. This chapter explores the varying ways in which these expectations both shape how mothers of young children go about the everyday routines of family life, and the ways in which the changed ‘post-conflict’ situation has generated uncertainty and innovation in expectations of what good mothering might entail in this changed context. The everyday tensions shaping the transmission of collective culture to young children in ways which also affirm non-sectarianism is explored. The discussion focuses on complex orientations towards religion, cross community interactions and friendships, spatial segregation, and conventions of naming and dressing young children (Ashe pg.779, Anthias and Yuval Davis). The discussion also focuses on the anxieties generated by normative innovation, and the gender dynamics of these changes and tensions.

"En AFIN tenemos el firme convencimiento de que los resultados de las investigaciones no pueden quedarse en el ámbito académico, sino que tienen que ser trasladados no solo a quienes tienen la responsabilidad de definir políticas públicas sino también a las y los usuarios finales y ciudadan@s, por lo que uno de nuestros principales objetivos es la diseminación de los mismos, tanto a través de las Newsletters como de jornadas y congresos.
Por eso, dedicamos esta Newsletter a resumir las sesiones del V Congreso de AFIN, celebrado el 25 y 26 de noviembre pasado y titulado “La tríada en la adopción, el acogimiento y la reproducción asistida: el lugar de la familia de origen”. Con él cerrábamos el segundo año del proyecto de investigación “Adopción Internacional y Nacional: Familia, educación y pertenencia: perspectivas interdisciplinares y comparativas” (MICINN CSO2009-14763-C03-01 subprograma SOCI). Próximamente, los videos de las diferentes ponencias podrán visionarse en la web de AFIN: http://www.afin.org.es."

The December 2015 (no. 68) edition of the UK based psychoanalytic journal Free Associations has an excellent, richly descriptive review of my edited book Mothering and Psychoanalysis by Joanna Kellond. Here’s a few choice excerpts from her review:

“This section powerfully elucidates the complex ways in which ideas of subjectivity, attitudes to motherhood and social norms – all imbricated with economic imperatives – potentially collude in maintaining the neoliberal status quo.”

“Collectively, these essays explore both entrenched negative representations of the maternal and other discursive productions which offer new modes and possibilities for maternal signification and symbolisation. They thus play a role in the necessary re-imagining and transformation of the maternal beyond the terms of patriarchy.”

“[This section] continues this work of reimagining and redefinition, not least by foregrounding a move from the ‘infantocentric perspective’ common in much psychoanalytic theorising to a more intersubjective, even ‘maternocentric’, one (344).”

“This acknowledgement of the complex, multifaceted nature of maternal subjectivity provides a necessary redress to a rhetoric of idealisation that can leave mothers feeling inadequate.”

And finally,

“Bueskens is correct that the collection is eclectic, though it’s an eclecticism that works. Across the diverse papers certain themes recur, pulling them together into what feels like an important and timely conversation. The relationship between motherhood and neoliberalism, and the need to create new modes of signifying and symbolising the maternal beyond the terms of patriarchy are central themes that receive sophisticated and compelling exploration. These themes also speak to and feed into the collection’s abiding concern with not only an ethics, but a politics, of care. In this context, the maternal takes centre stage in both the theory and practice of imagining the world otherwise. As such, this collection will be an essential read for anyone concerned with this process of re-imagination, and with bringing the mother from ‘the shadows of our culture’ (Irigaray 1991: 35), into the light.”

You can read the full review here: http://freeassociations.org.uk/FA_New/OJS/index.php/fa/article/view/129

In this SPECIAL ISSUE  the contributions of anthropology to the understanding of childbirth as social practice IN PORTUGAL are outlined. Portugal is a country with one of the highest rates of medical intervention in childbirth in Europe, and widespread and diverse opposition to current medicalised approaches to birthing care in Portugal are becoming increasingly visible, yet the “alternative” practice of homebirth exists in a legal void.  This collEction of articles is an attempt to bridge the present gap in knowledge by showcasing new anthropological research from Portugal on pregnancy and childbirth, offering analyses of birth which go beyond generalising descriptions of the oppositional discourses of specific social actors (e. g. doctors, midwives, homebirthers), and instead analyse the various reflections, collaborations, contestations and contradictions, in particular situations and settings. The experiences of women are foregrounded.

Mapping the Gap
Visual Multidisciplinary Paper
by Multidisciplinary Feminist Artist and activist Shira Richter
for
Mamsie M(o)ther Trouble: An International Conference on Feminism, Psychoanalysis and the Maternal  2009

The Mother Daughter and Holy Spirit
Art Project: Photography, and Phototext

The sentence describing Mamsie's vision "Mapping Maternal Subjectivities, Identities and Ethics" Describes my 2005 project in which I created topographical-photographic "maps" from the uncharted left -over skin territory on my mid-body after giving vaginal birth to twins.

At the beginning I named the project In Limbo – because I felt as if I was existing in an unexisting  unacknowledged -unnamed space –or planet, between identities. A gap opened between what I felt and what everyone else around me was telling me I should feel. “This collision between expectation and reality creates a kind of statelessness for many women of my generation…” writes Naomi Wolf in her own account “Misconceptions”. So I went about searching to “fill the gap”, to “solidify” my experience into form and words. To visibilize the invisible. “The Mother Daughter and Holy Spirit” is the name of one of the photographs.
Living in Israel, a state based on a religion, speaking in Hebrew, made me painfully aware of the famous biblical prophecy:  “In sorrow ye shall bear sons”. I was consciously angry the only “formal” reference to such a huge complex transforming event in my life was a punishment, a  negative curse, of a male god. Not a blessing, miracle or achievement. There is no ceremony honoring the humongous physical mental and emotional effort of the woman, or the shift of the couple into parenthood. The name “Mother Daughter and Holy Spirit” invokes a female divinity. And also the name “The Father, Son and Holy Spirit” which creates,  by way of gestalt, in one’s thought, a duality, or a double trinity, of male and female. The act of creation is never solitary the  way our “hero” monogod culture pretends. Another reason for the name has to do with the complex relationships between mothers and daughters, between one woman to another. When you are not told the truth by those closest to you, those who traveled before -you feel betrayed. The women closest to me- personally and professionally, almost all lied. I wanted to create a large scale subjective monument in honor of this transition and transformation.

Researching from the inside out can be challenging yet a rewarding and valid process. This paper specifically engages with a reflexive research process as a feminist. I propose that there is space within sociological research for biographical interludes even though I still question where I am in this research process and should I even be there? This paper is about where „my selves. are in this research process among the mothers and fathers interviewed. Our common ground is that of parenting a child with learning difficulties. I identify with feminists, mothers, and parents and my narrative is similar to some of those who I have interviewed. I draw attention to these issues and remind others and myself that when you start the research process however many books on interviewing techniques and methodology you have read your own personal response to „others. narratives can affect your research process. The results of this paper illustrate both the difficulties and the advantages of researching from the „inside. in an attempt to move forward with this emotional/creative and illuminating methodology much varied knowledge can be gained about the gendered and differentiated social world.

... the models of temporality and place-making practices that emerge within postmodernism allow for ... The post-modern family, as feminist philosopher Cheshire Calhoun (1997) notes (and Virilio [1995 ... Automating gender: Postmodern feminism in the age of the intelligent machine. ...

Lo que hace de la pluralidad familiar un hecho relevante como indicador del cambio social no es tanto su novedad, puesto que siempre han coexistido modelos familiares diferentes al predominante, sino la admisión de su ―normalidad‖ por la sociedad, la tolerancia de formas diversas y diferentes de familia y de comportamientos ―ilegítimos‖ hasta hace unos años: la cohabitación, la separación, la homosexualidad y los hijos extramatrimoniales. Nos ocuparemos aquí de las madres solteras por elección‘ (MSPE) y de las estrategias que desarrollan para enfrentar la ausencia del padre en sus familias, un aspecto considerado esencial por parte de los conocimientos expertos."