Theorising and Representing Maternal Realities

Edited By: Julie Kelso, Marie Porter

£34.99

This book expands academic knowledge of motherhood from a feminist perspective. When mothers are responsible for theorising their own realities, dominant representations are challenged. It is no longer acceptable to regard mothers as objects of research; they are the subjects.

Maternal research is a rapidly expanding, multi-disciplinary form of scholarship. Prior to second wave feminism most motherhood literature was written from a male perspective. This…

Maternal research is a rapidly expanding, multi-disciplinary form of scholarship. Prior to second wave feminism most motherhood literature was written from a male perspective. This literature focused on telling mothers how to practice mothering without acknowledging the expertise of the mothers themselves. Research on motherhood as it is experienced in all its facets by mothers has only emerged in recent decades. This book is aimed at expanding academic knowledge of motherhood, from a feminist perspective, looking particularly at how maternal subjectivities can be represented and theorised. When mothers themselves (academic or not) are responsible for theorisation and representation of maternal ‘realities’, dominant theories and representations of motherhood are radically challenged. In Theorising and Representing Maternal Realities the contributors argue that it is no longer acceptable to regard mothers as mere objects of knowledge and research. They are primarily the subjects of knowledge and research.

Marie Porter is an Honorary Research Adviser in the School of History, Philosophy, Religion and Classics at the University of Queensland. She is an editor of the book Motherhood: Power and Oppression, Porter, M., Short, P., and O’Reilly, A. (Eds), published by Women’s Press, Toronto (2005). She is President of the Australian Association for Research on Mothering (ARM-A) formed in 2005 to encourage the academic study, and recognition, of mothering. Her doctoral thesis, Transformative Power in Motherwork: A Study of Mothering in the 1950s and 1960s, is soon to be published by Cambridge Scholars Publishing.

Julie Kelso is an Honorary Research Adviser in the School of English, Media Studies and Art History. She has published in the areas of feminist biblical studies, feminist philosophy and mothering and literature. Her recent book, O Mother Where Art Thou?: an Irigarayan reading of the Book of Chronicles (London: Equinox, 2008), explores the relationship between the maternal body and silence in the Hebrew Book of Chronicles. She is the Managing Editor of the e-journal The Bible and Critical Theory.

Dr. Sharon Abbey, Helen Bowcock , Sheree Cartwright, Anne Else, Fiona Giles, Sue Kentlyn, JaneMaree Maher, Clare Mariskind, Anne Morris, Rhonda Shaw, Julie Kelso

Hardback

ISBN: 1-84718-456-1
ISBN13: 978-1-84718-456-6
Date of Publication: 2008-02-28

Ebook

ISBN: 1-4438-1042-8
ISBN13: 978-1-4438-1042-5
Date of Publication: 2008-02-28

Category: Social Sciences, Sociology, Sociology

Pages: 255

Subject Codes:

BIC: JHBK
BISAC: SOC010000, SOC028000, SOC026010, PHI034000, PHI004000, PHI018000
THEMA: JHBK

Pages: 255

“This timely book is conceived with a clear desire to make visible the hidden and often challenging ‘real’ experiences of aspects of women’s everyday lives as mothers….. “The book is a compassionate and scholarly work which reveals and theorizes maternal realities in contexts which many women will recognise”. This fascinating and thought-provoking book makes an important contribution to the study of maternal lives and is a must read for a wide range of academic, professional and practitioner audiences.”
- Dr. Tina Miller, Reader in Sociology, Oxford Brookes University, Oxford. UK Author of ‘Making Sense of Motherhood: A Narrative Approach’ (2005) Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Theorising and Representing Maternal Realities

Hardback

Ebook

Subject Codes:

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