Mothering and Sociology

The article compares the development of policies pertaining to care for preschool children in the course of the second half of the 20th century in France and in the Czech Republic. It aims at identifying the key factors that led to the differentiation of the policies and institutions in the two countries, especially with respect to support for extra-familial care and formal care institutions (nurseries). We build on the theories of 'new' institutionalisms and we apply framing analysis, which allows us to understand the formation of ideas that precede policy changes. Specifically, we discuss the role of expert discourse and the framings of care for young children in the process of social policy change. We argue that expert knowledge in interaction with the political, economic, and demographic contexts and how it has been presented in public have had a fundamental impact on the formation of childcare policies and institutions in the two countries. This article presents a comparative analysis of the development of discourses, institutions , and policies of care for children under the age of three in France and the Czech Republic in the second half of the 20th century. Despite their different pasts, these

In the context of offenders who have learning difficulties, autism and/or social, emotional and mental health problems, their families, and professionals who work with them, I explore caring and ethical research processes via fieldnotes I wrote while carrying out life-story interviews. Life-story interviews and recording fieldnotes within qualitative criminological, education and sociological research have long since been used to document and analyse communities, institutions and everyday life in the private and public spheres. They richly tell us about specific contexts, research relationships and emotional responses to data collection that interview transcripts alone overlook. It is in the process of recording and reflecting upon research relationships that we can see and understand 'care-full' research. But caring and ethical research works in an interdependent and relational way. Therefore, the participant and the researcher are at times vulnerable, and recognition of such is critical in considering meaningful and healthy research practices. However, the acknowledgment that particular types of data collection can be messy, chaotic and emotional is necessary in understanding caring research.

There is a growing literature focussed on middle-class parents who resist normative school-choice behaviour by enrolling their children in schools ‘lacking’ or challenging middle-class ideals. This focus has its origins in critical scholarship which explores how the British white middle-classes negotiate their class advantage in multi-ethnic ‘low-achieving’ schools (Crozier et al., 2006; Reay, Crozier & James, 2011; Reay et al., 2007) using an extension of Bourdieu’s conceptual framework for analysis (Reay, 2004; Dillabough, 2004; Lareau & Weiniger, 2003; Sayer, 2005). Inspired by their research, the data from this critical qualitative case study was mainly collected from white and multi-ethnic professionals in a university town in the United States of America who enrolled their children in an elementary school which had become under-enrolled and demonized as a ‘failing school’ (henceforth Osborne-school).
In order to understand the political context of the choices faced by the parents enrolling their children in the Osborne-school, the competing equity discourses surrounding education in the USA were explored, that is the neo-liberal discourse promoting free school-choice and organizational reforms (Chubb & Moe, 1990), as well as the integration discourse which is a call for racial and economic integration among schools (Kahlenberg, 2001). These policies were played out upon Osborne-school during the research period from 2005-2008 and reproduced a concentration of disadvantaged families in the Osborne community, but at the same time the school attracted a critical mass of middle-class activists, both among parents and staff, to Osborne.
My main participants consisted of 36 families, thereof 31 of middle-classes, who all have in common that they deliberately or by policy forces, considered Osborne-school as a choice for their children. This group included constrained choosers through the federal integration policy who 1) never attended or left Osborne-community during the research period, or 2) integrated to Osborne and stayed throughout, or 3) were deliberate choosers of Osborne through open enrolment or residential right. The main reasons the constrained choosers gave for leaving or avoiding Osborne were a lack of accumulative effects of privilege within Osborne-community followed by a lack of cultural familiarity and adjustment. The parents who stayed throughout the research period deviated more than the constrained leavers and non-comers from middle-class normativity in terms of race, history, the marital and occupational status of the mother, or the ‘special learning needs’ of their child. In interviews, these parents emphasized the importance of a diverse, child-centred, democratic and caring school community forming critically engaged and equity-oriented students, yet they were simultaneously affected by advanced neo-liberal policies. They were driven by ideals of motherhood (Griffith & Smith, 2005; Reay, 1998; Vincent, 2010) and exchange values as presumed quality in education is unavoidably intersected with advantage in the social context of the learning community (Anyon, 2008; Bourdieu 1989). Analysis of these interviews revealed the intersection of racialized, gendered and classed contradictions that these parents encountered in their challenging of elitist school choice models, which resulted in emotional costs (Reay, 2008) and ethical dilemmas (Sayer, 2005).
The present study offers a deeper understanding of the impact of neoliberalization in education than previous studies in the field have done. It uncovers subtle differences among middle-class identities in the US with respect to educational choices.

As new communication technologies transform everyday life in the 21st century, personal, family, and other social relations are transformed with it. As a way of exploring the larger question, "how exactly does communication technology transform love and how love is lived?" here I explore the cell phone, instant messaging and other communication technologies as electronic extensions of maternal bodies connecting (cyber)mother to (cyber)children. Feminist explorations of the marketing and use of cell phones, as well as other communication technologies, have largely remarked on the pernicious gender ideologies intertwined with technological innovation and application. If, however, we take seriously Haraway’s (1991) claim that postmodern humans are cyborgs, the distinction between human animals and machines breaks down in ways that invite us to revision the questions we ask about technology. Thus instead of inquiring about the oppression engendered by the production and consumption of communication technologies, here I explore the ways in which technology functions as an extension and modification of human embodiment that transforms our experiences of intimacy and our ability to create, maintain and transform loving relationships with others. More specifically, I examine cyborg mothering as transformative of loving relationships between women and children

Abstract This is an article about Sarah’s sexual teenage journey,
seen through the lens of her mother, the author. It tackles
learning disability, sexual experimentation, education,
governance and responsibility. By using an autoethnographical
method the article speaks personally to these intimate lived
experiences and yet broadly and contextually these issues can
give further insight into the difficult social processes that
permeate surveillance and control, of sexual activity amongst a
particular group of adults (young, learning disabled), by way of
legal practice and sex education; family practices and the
negotiation of power and control over sexual activity; and sexual
citizenship and rights to a sexual identity

This paper is about mothering, young learning disabled people, their sexualised and relationship lives and normalisation – not through the lens of the disabled person, but via a mothers perspective and theoretical discussion. As a mother who has a learning disabled daughter, a feminist and an academic my own mothering experience, my Ph.D. research and social theory are woven throughout this paper with the intention of opening up debate about sex, intimacy and normalisation, and how these impact upon young learning disabled people. I suggest that the relationship between sex, reproduction, intimacy and intellectual impairment and a project to decipher what it means to be human in all its dirty glory are also part of the discourse that needs to be discussed experientially and theoretically. So much so that the messy world within which we all live can be variously and differently constructed.

Within the context of neoliberal times, mothers are said to be increasingly monitoring their children’s lives. Yet, the extent to which neoliberalism can explain mothers’ aspirations for their children remains unclear. This article explores how 26 Australian mothers, half of whom had a child with an eating disorder, spoke about happiness in regards to their aspirations for their children. We argue that the mothers resist materialistic aspirations for their children by privileging their child’s happiness, defined as a selection of inner qualities that their children can possess. While all the mothers were aspirational about their children’s future happiness, happiness to mothers with a child with an eating disorder was more moderate and viewed as a way of protecting their children. Further, privileging these inner qualities of happiness brings its own limitations. We highlight the contextual nature of happiness, arguing for a more nuanced understanding of family circumstances in neol...

"The collection of 23 essays provides an exciting snapshot of contemporary theorising on the maternal within psychoanalytic and social theory. The introduction serves as an excellent overview of this interdisciplinary field and its importance both to motherhood studies and broader feminist thinking. This book is a triumph!" Assistant Professor Julie Kelso, Department of Philosophy and Literature, Bond University "Mothering and Psychoanalysis brings together a vibrant collection of critical, interdisciplinary perspectives on psychoanalysis, feminism, motherhood and sociology. In her engaging introduction, Petra Bueskens provides a comprehensive overview of the key debates in the field and their contemporary implications. The collection includes reprinted essays from important thinkers and international contributions from a diverse range of writers who offer fresh and original insights into psychoanalysis and mothering. The book represents some of the best of the new scholarship in maternal studies." Associate Professor Julie Stephens, College of Arts, Victoria University, Australia

Öz Bu araştırmanın amacı düşünümsel bilimselleşme, estetik düşünüm ve sağlığın değişen kapsamı gibi süreç ve etkilerle, çağdaş risklere dair artan farkındalığın annelik deneyimine ve çocuğu tehdit eden risklere yönelik algılarına etkisini betimlemektir. Araştırma fenomenolojik araştırma modeli ile desenlenmiştir. Çalışma grubu yüksek eğitimli orta ve orta üstü sosyoekonomik statüye (SES) sahip 0-6 yaş aralığında çocuğa sahip 12, 7-12 yaş aralığında çocuğa sahip 12, 13-18 yaş aralığında çocuğa sahip 12 katılımcı, toplamda 36 katılımcı ile gerçekleştirilmiştir. Veriler kategorik içerik analizi tekniği ile çözümlenmiştir. Araştırma bulgularına göre uzman değerlendirmelerinde öne çıkan hamilelik ve doğumun doğru yönetimi, anne-çocuk ilişkisinde güvenli bağlanmanın ve etkili bir iletişimin sağlanması ile ilişkili çocuğa dönük faydalar, annelerin bu faydaları elde edememenin taşıdığı risklere yönelik algılarını yoğunlaştırmaktadır. Ayrıca aynı değerlendirmelerde katkı maddeli ürünlerin tüketimi ve uygunsuz bir sosyal çevre ile ilişkilendirilen risklere çekilen dikkat, orta-orta üstü SES grubundaki annelerin habituslarının önemli bir bileşeni olan ve çocuklarının yaşamlarını kontrol etmeyi annelerin bir görevi olarak kabul eden risk bilinçli annelik anlayışına katkıda bulunmaktadır. Anneler ise kendileri açısından sonuç ve/ veya bedellerine bakmaksızın çocuğa yönelik çok küçük veya çok az anlaşılmış olsa dahi tüm riskleri azaltan davranış ve tutumları kucaklamakta ve hem çocuğun gelişimini destekleme hem de onun refahını/iyiliğini tehdit eden mevcut ve potansiyel tehlikelere karşı koruma sorumluluğunu yüklenmektedir.

In this introduction to the collection “Birthing matters in Portugal,” the contributions of anthropology to the understanding of childbirth as social practice 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. The introduction provides a summary of the historical emergence of the current situation, which has scarcely been explored to date by social science scholars. This colelction 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. The contribution of each of the four papers in the collection is described.

In the scenario of developing countries, Hepatitis is a well known and continuously spreading disease. In Pakistan the situation is also not satisfactory. Government and private sector striving to control this dangerous disease but graph is still going up.  Pakistani pregnant women are facing this disease with the high risk and a major reason to transmit the virus to their fetus. This study is focused to address the prevalence of deadly hepatitis B and C among pregnant women of Wah cant. As primary source of information secondary data was used to explore the topic of interest. There for one year record of Hepatitis B+/C+ registered pregnant women (n=116) was collected from health staff by getting permission from the authorities of Al-Moeed Hospital, Wah Cant. Taxila. Data was entered in SPSS and also analyzed by using the same application. Findings of the study show that the ratio of hepatitis B and C is increasing in Pakistan especially among pregnant women. The reason is that the pregnant women are most vulnerable for this kind of viral diseases. Results of the study shows that 64.66% of women are hepatitis B positive and 35.34% women are infected with hepatitis C. Majority of the infected pregnant women lives in rural area and but 39.65% women of urban area is also infected with this disease. The prevalence of hepatitis is getting higher day by day among pregnant women and also among common people in Pakistan. Identified causes of prevalence of this deadly disease e.g. poor hygiene, water and sanitation issues and there is also lack of awareness among people especially rural population of the country.

La intención de este artículo es proponer que, en el imaginario sociocultural, todavía persisten creencias que otorgan a las mujeres el rol de meros objetos reproductores de las exigencias de los varones, sean estos humanos o divinos, y esbozar cómo esa función reproductora se recrea en el tiempo. La invención de la categoría de simple recipiente de la semilla del macho que se atribuía a la mujer tiene un largo recorrido histórico que, contra lo que podría esperarse, en lugar de ir eclipsándose se mantiene viva en el siglo XXI. Obviamente, los discursos y procesos son cada vez más sutiles y menos visibles, lo cual permite una continua impregnación a nivel social de las ideologías que mantienen activas las creencias y sus prácticas. Y, con ello, la idealización de la maternidad como destino de las mujeres."

What does ‘care’ mean in contemporary society? How are caring relationships practised in different contexts? What resources do individuals and collectives draw upon in order to care for, care with and care about themselves and others? How do such relationships and practices relate to broader social processes? Care shapes people’s everyday lives and relationships and caring relations and practices influence the economies of different societies. This interdisciplinary book takes a nuanced and context-sensitive approach to exploring caring relationships, identities and practices within and across a variety of cultural, familial, geographical and institutional arenas. Grounded in rich empirical research and discussing key theoretical, policy and practice debates, it provides important, yet often neglected, international and cross-cultural perspectives. It is divided into four sections covering: caring within educational institutions; caring amongst communities and networks; caring and families; and caring across the life-course. Contributing to broader theoretical, philosophical and moral debates associated with the ethics of care, citizenship, justice, relationality and entanglements of power, Critical Approaches to Care is an important work for students and academics studying caring and care work in the fields of health and social care, sociology, social policy, anthropology, education, human geography and politics.

"The collection of 23 essays provides an exciting snapshot of contemporary theorising on the maternal within psychoanalytic and social theory. The introduction serves as an excellent overview of this interdisciplinary field and its importance both to motherhood studies and broader feminist thinking. This book is a triumph!" Assistant Professor Julie Kelso, Department of Philosophy and Literature, Bond University "Mothering and Psychoanalysis brings together a vibrant collection of critical, interdisciplinary perspectives on psychoanalysis, feminism, motherhood and sociology. In her engaging introduction, Petra Bueskens provides a comprehensive overview of the key debates in the field and their contemporary implications. The collection includes reprinted essays from important thinkers and international contributions from a diverse range of writers who offer fresh and original insights into psychoanalysis and mothering. The book represents some of the best of the new scholarship in maternal studies." Associate Professor Julie Stephens, College of Arts, Victoria University, Australia

"The collection of 23 essays provides an exciting snapshot of contemporary theorising on the maternal within psychoanalytic and social theory. The introduction serves as an excellent overview of this interdisciplinary field and its importance both to motherhood studies and broader feminist thinking. This book is a triumph!" Assistant Professor Julie Kelso, Department of Philosophy and Literature, Bond University "Mothering and Psychoanalysis brings together a vibrant collection of critical, interdisciplinary perspectives on psychoanalysis, feminism, motherhood and sociology. In her engaging introduction, Petra Bueskens provides a comprehensive overview of the key debates in the field and their contemporary implications. The collection includes reprinted essays from important thinkers and international contributions from a diverse range of writers who offer fresh and original insights into psychoanalysis and mothering. The book represents some of the best of the new scholarship in maternal studies." Associate Professor Julie Stephens, College of Arts, Victoria University, Australia

What does ‘care’ mean in contemporary society? How are caring relationships practised in different contexts? What resources do individuals and collectives draw upon in order to care for, care with and care about themselves and others? How do such relationships and practices relate to broader social processes? Care shapes people’s everyday lives and relationships and caring relations and practices influence the economies of different societies. This interdisciplinary book takes a nuanced and context-sensitive approach to exploring caring relationships, identities and practices within and across a variety of cultural, familial, geographical and institutional arenas. Grounded in rich empirical research and discussing key theoretical, policy and practice debates, it provides important, yet often neglected, international and cross-cultural perspectives. It is divided into four sections covering: caring within educational institutions; caring amongst communities and networks; caring and families; and caring across the life-course. Contributing to broader theoretical, philosophical and moral debates associated with the ethics of care, citizenship, justice, relationality and entanglements of power, Critical Approaches to Care is an important work for students and academics studying caring and care work in the fields of health and social care, sociology, social policy, anthropology, education, human geography and politics.

This chapter engages with broad debates from a range of disciplines surrounding transnational parenting in Asia, to identify and analyze gaps in the literature. Providing a case study from my work on social reconstructions of mothering, I offer that, while moral communities are often founded upon thick social relations, my participants’ practices of maternal transnational care towards others depict an inter-weaving of both thick and thin social relations. While I continue in the tradition of work which uncovers everyday transnationalism ‘on the ground’, I emphasize the gendered, maternal dimensions of performing this within the g/local South Asian, specifically Coorg, context using instances of kinwork, emotions, and (transnational) charity beyond the community. I suggest the construction of extended moral communities of co-responsibility is at play in the maternal-inspired generational, gendered motherwork of my participants and their trans-domestic, transnational citizenship practices of raising model citizens in global cities. I finally propose a research agenda for the future of the subfield of gender and transnational parenting.

This is an open-access publication available from https://hcs.pitt.edu/ojs/index.php/hcs/article/view/137/168

This paper utilizes disability studies informed by 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 trace 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, violent, and globalizing frames of normative humanity for us all.

This paper examines the difficulties inherent in mothering, especially attachment parenting, in the context of modern social structure with its sequestration of women to the private sphere and emphasis on individual fulfilment.  Caring for a baby is always an act of culture but in modern societies, it is to experts that we turn for guidance and advice. Broadly speaking, in the modern west, baby and childcare has been split
between a rational-efficiency model (for example, four hourly feeds, the rise of domestic hygiene, bottle feeding, developmental psychology and so on) and a romantic model, which seeks to dissolve authority and efficiency in favour of a
"natural," more bonded style of care (for example, long-term unregulated breast feeding, the family bed, permissive parenting and so on). This article will explore the renewed emphasis by our "baby-experts" on the second, more
romantic model of care, or, what the well known pediatrician William Sears aptly terms, "immersion mothering" (1982: 181), in the latter part of the twentieth century. I address the paradoxes that emerge when experts call this style of caregiving "natural" or "traditional" before moving into some of
the dilemmas that result for late-modern women when they attempt to enact "immersion mothering." My contention is that the high personal sacrifice, isolation, and immobility required by such intensive caregiving is antithetical to successful participation in a modern differentiated society.

This article was selected for re-printing in Andrea O’Reilly (ed.) Mother Matters: Motherhood as Discourse and Practice (2004). In addition, it has been cited, written about and reviewed in many places.  See:

Joan B. Wolf, Is Breast Best? Taking on the Breastfeeding Experts and the New High Stakes of Motherhood, New York University Press, New York, 2011.

Ivana Brown, A Sociological Analysis of Maternal Ambivalence: Class and Race Differences Among New Mothers, PhD Thesis, Rutgers University, 2011.

Martha McCaughey, “Got Milk?: Breastfeeding as an ‘Incurably Informed’ Feminist STS Scholar“, Science as Culture,vol. 19, no. 1, 2010, pp. 79-100.

Ruth Cain, ” A View You Won’t Get Anywhere Else’’? Depressed Mothers, Public Regulation and ‘Private’ Narrative” Feminist Legal Studies, vol. 17, 2009, pp. 123-143.

“The Impossibility of ‘Natural Parenting’ for Modern Mothers, babycentre.com thread posted by ‘vaptek’ on 30/08/2008.

Shelley Kulperger, “Loss of Mother/Hood: Maternalising Postcolonial Cultural Memory” Hecate, vol.33, no.1, 2007, p.223.

Joan B Wolf, “Is Breast Really Best? Risk and Total Motherhood in the National Breastfeeding Awareness Campaign“, Journal of Health, Policy and Law, vol. 32, no.4, 2007, pp.  595-636

Andrea O’Reilly (ed.), From Motherhood to Mothering: The Legacy of Adrienne Rich’s “Of Woman Born“, SUNY Press, New York, 2004. See in particular the introduction, p. 6.

Chris Bobel, “When Good Enough Isn’t: Mother Blame in the Continuum Concept“, Journal of the Motherhood Initiative for Research and Community Involvement, vol. 6, no. 2, 2004, pp. 68-78.


Alison Bartlett, “Breastfeeding Bodies and Choice in Late Capitalism“, Hecate, vol, 29, no. 2, 2003,  pp. 153-165.


See also the links for Google scholar.

Tal i com comentàvem en l’entrega anterior, hem decidit dedicar les dues últimes Newsletter corresponents a l’any 2010, a ressenyar els principals resultats presentats en un conjunt de Congressos Internacionals i Nacionals, sobre Infància i Joventut en general i sobre adopció en particular, celebrats durant l’any en diferents ciutats del món.

As a new mother, something that is constantly on my mind is how to teach my daughter morals and values.  She just turned three and has a strong awareness of what is going on around her.  Her vocabulary is vast and continues to grow daily.  I know that if I don’t start teaching her values now, I am missing out on an important opportunity.

Although I was raised Catholic and consider myself a “cultural Catholic,” I am uncomfortable with Catholic traditional prayers because of their lack of gender inclusiveness, among other things.  We don’t attend church as we have not yet found a community that we feel is a good fit for our family.

"Como comentábamos en la entrega anterior, hemos decidido dedicar las dos últimas Newsletter correspondientes al año 2010 a reseñar los principales resultados presentados en un conjunto de Congresos Internacionales y Nacionales sobre Infancia y Juventud en general y sobre adopción en particular celebrados durante el año en distintas ciudades del mundo .
Se trata, sobre todo, de difundir entre la mayor cantidad de personas interesadas en las infancias en general, los temas, problemáticas y avances producidos en los últimos tiempos en dicho campo en distintas disciplinas.
Se trata, asimismo, de un objetivo que mantendremos durante el año 2011 con la publicación de una o dos Newsletters dedicadas a comentar las reuniones de las que los integrantes del Grupo de Investigación AFIN participen u organicen.""

... 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. ...

Mediating Mother-Activism Edited by Gilda Seddighi and Sara Tafakori Recent years have seen a renewed interest in exploring motherhood and mothering as political and emotional resources for digital activism. Although the intertwinement of mothering and politics predates the digital context, feminist debates around the politicization of mothering, from protests against state killings and disappearances, via the role of the mother in nation-building, to advocacy for right wing populisms, need addressing all the more urgently as we endeavour to

Globalization and its imminent effect on education have received attention in recent years. Less widely acknowledged is the discussion of the role of middle-class mothers who are stuck amidst the changes in their children's education and future. With the aid of in-depth face-to-face interviews and extensive participant observation in Kolkata, this chapter examines how middle-class mothers resort to commercial solutions to help manage their crisis in a neoliberal India. The crisis managers in the form of "mom-schooling" agencies support and coach mothers to negotiate with the changing education system and parenting methods that have become highly Americanized. In this chapter, the author uses Bourdieu's theory of conversion of capital to argue that mothers in Kolkata are acting as "converters" of capital with the help of commercial mom-schools by converting economic capital to a distinct form of cultural capital that they transfer to their children for the latter's success in a global economy.

The article is based on research about holistic mothering in contemporary Portugal. Holistic mothering is an umbrella term, used here to describe different mothering choices based on the assumption that pregnancy, birthing and early mothering are important spiritual experiences for the mother and the child, but also for the father. In Portugal, many holistic mothers choose homebirth and avoid what they perceive as excessive medicalization during hospital birth. Influenced by Davis-Floyd’s analysis of birth as an American rite of passage and her distinction between a technocratic and a wholistic model of birth, Portuguese holistic mothers conceptualize homebirth as a rebellious choice that subverts the predominant, biomedical model. The subversive aspects of homebirth are underscored by the fact that it exists in a legal void and is presented in the media and in popular discourse as a dangerous choice that poses an obstacle to the country’s modernization. Drawing on ethnographic data, I argue that the entrenchment of two opposing models, what Davis-Floyd calls the wholistic and the technocratic, is counter-productive and contributes to traumatic experiences for holistic mothers who choose homebirth but who end up hospitalized, and consequently targeted for critique by the medical establishment and the wider social environment, which originates a sense of guilt and/or inadequacy for not being able to follow-through with the birth at home.

Malacrida, Claudia (2012). “Relational teaching and mothers with disabilities: Bridging the public/private, dependency/nurturance divides.”  In Springgay, S. & Freedman, D., editors. Mothering a bodied curriculum: Emplacement, desire, affect. Toronto, ON: University of Toronto Press. 88 – 102.

Within the context of neoliberal times, mothers are said to be increasingly monitoring their children’s lives. Yet, the extent to which neoliberalism can explain mothers’ aspirations for their children remains unclear. This article explores how 26 Australian mothers, half of whom had a child with an eating disorder, spoke about happiness in regards to their aspirations for their children. We argue that the mothers resist materialistic aspirations for their children by privileging their child’s happiness, defined as a selection of inner qualities that their children can possess. While all the mothers were aspirational about their children’s future happiness, happiness to mothers with a child with an eating disorder was more moderate and viewed as a way of protecting their children. Further, privileging these inner qualities of happiness brings its own limitations. We highlight the contextual nature of happiness, arguing for a more nuanced understanding of family circumstances in neol...

One of the key issues concerning breastfeeding and work is women having the flexibility to feed while they are working. This calls for a radical transformation in the culture of work. While most women manage this combination through pumping, as maternal scholar Julie Stephens notes, this relationship superimposes neo-liberal work norms onto mothers, by separating maternal and infant (or toddler) bodies (2010). With pumping, it is the mother who adjusts to an individualist work culture rather than the other way around. Mothers remove their milk and remain separated at the bodily level from their babies – keeping up the “supply” of both milk and work - while maintaining a façade of the disembodied worker. https://www.routledge.com/nursing/posts/7619?utm_source=routledge&utm_medium=cms&utm_campaign=sbu2_hmc_2pr_8cm_5hsc_aed15_x_x_world%20breast%20feeding%20week

What does ‘care’ mean in contemporary society? How are caring relationships practised in different contexts? What resources do individuals and collectives draw upon in order to care for, care with and care about themselves and others? How do such relationships and practices relate to broader social processes? Care shapes people’s everyday lives and relationships and caring relations and practices influence the economies of different societies. This interdisciplinary book takes a nuanced and context-sensitive approach to exploring caring relationships, identities and practices within and across a variety of cultural, familial, geographical and institutional arenas. Grounded in rich empirical research and discussing key theoretical, policy and practice debates, it provides important, yet often neglected, international and cross-cultural perspectives. It is divided into four sections covering: caring within educational institutions; caring amongst communities and networks; caring and families; and caring across the life-course. Contributing to broader theoretical, philosophical and moral debates associated with the ethics of care, citizenship, justice, relationality and entanglements of power, Critical Approaches to Care is an important work for students and academics studying caring and care work in the fields of health and social care, sociology, social policy, anthropology, education, human geography and politics.