Search results

1 – 10 of 37
Book part
Publication date: 15 November 2018

Kristin J. Wilson

The burgeoning practice of peer-to-peer breastmilk sharing in the United States conflicts with public health concerns about the safety of the milk. In-depth interviews with 58…

Abstract

The burgeoning practice of peer-to-peer breastmilk sharing in the United States conflicts with public health concerns about the safety of the milk. In-depth interviews with 58 breastmilk sharers highlight the ways in which these respondents counter widespread risk narratives. These caregivers deploy existing social values such as self-reliance, good citizenship, and “crunchy,” or natural, mothering to validate their milk-sharing practices. However, because of stratified reproduction, in which society encourages White motherhood while it disparages motherhood among poor women and women of color, these discourses are more accessible to milk sharers who are White and from middle-class. Black and Latinx milk donors and recipients offer additional rationale for milk sharing that includes reclaiming their legacies as worthy mothers and elevating milk sharing to justice work. In rejecting and reframing risk, all of these milk sharers work toward flattening the good mother/bad mother binary.

Details

Marginalized Mothers, Mothering from the Margins
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-78756-400-8

Keywords

Content available
Book part
Publication date: 15 November 2018

Abstract

Details

Marginalized Mothers, Mothering from the Margins
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-78756-400-8

Abstract

Details

Marginalized Mothers, Mothering from the Margins
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-78756-400-8

Content available
Book part
Publication date: 15 November 2018

Abstract

Details

Marginalized Mothers, Mothering from the Margins
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-78756-400-8

Book part
Publication date: 23 August 2018

Katherine Carroll

Purpose – This chapter critically engages with a positively oriented emotional reflexivity with the aim of improving inclusivity in bereavement research.Methodology/Approach – The…

Abstract

Purpose – This chapter critically engages with a positively oriented emotional reflexivity with the aim of improving inclusivity in bereavement research.

Methodology/Approach – The heartfelt positivity methodology intentionally creates positivity through the everyday practices of academic research. In this chapter, emotional reflexivity is guided by the heartfelt positivity methodology to identify and learn from collaborators’ emotions. It focuses on collaborators whose involvement in the academic community falls beyond that of the immediate research team at different stages of bereavement research.

Findings – The emotions of collaborators involved in bereavement research have been overlooked, yet their inclusion reveals a significant potential for the sanctioning of bereaved mothers’ potential participation in bereavement-focused research or breastmilk donation programmes. Key learnings that may be applied to conducting future bereavement research are (i) the potential for collaborators to also be bereaved parents (ii) the continued need to strive for the inclusion of bereaved parents in research and (iii) to extend the methodological principle of emotional reflexivity to include research collaborators when researching emotionally sensitive topics.

Originality/Value – This chapter argues that bereaved mothers’ knowledge and practices of thriving in hard times can either be fostered or derailed at different stages of the research cycle depending on which narratives frame human suffering. For researchers and collaborators, emotional reflexivity is crucial to inclusive research practices and knowledge translation.

Details

Emotion and the Researcher: Sites, Subjectivities, and Relationships
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-78714-611-2

Keywords

Book part
Publication date: 23 August 2018

Aimee Grant

Purpose – Drawing on a study of data extracts ‘mined’ from the Internet without interaction with the author, this chapter considers the emotional implications of online…

Abstract

Purpose – Drawing on a study of data extracts ‘mined’ from the Internet without interaction with the author, this chapter considers the emotional implications of online ‘participant absent research’. The chapter argues that researchers should reflexively consider the ways in which data collection techniques framed as ‘passive’ actively impact on researchers’ emotional lifeworlds. Consequently, it is important to ensure that researchers are adequately prepared and supported.

Methodology/Approach – The data introduced in this chapter were constructed around a single case study. This example documents an incident where a woman was asked to leave a sports shop in the UK because she was breastfeeding. Not allowing breastfeeding within a business is illegal in the UK, and this case resulted in a protest. The study involved an analysis of user-generated data from an online news site and Twitter.

Findings – Drawing on field notes and conversations with colleagues, the chapter explores the value of reflexivity for successfully managing researchers’ emotional responses to disturbing data during the process of analysis.

Originality/Value – Whilst the role of emotion is often considered as part of ethnographic practice in studies utilising face-to-face encounters, it is underexplored in the online domain. This chapter presents, through a detailed example, a reflective account of the emotion work required in participant absent research, and offers strategies to reflexively manage emotions.

Details

Emotion and the Researcher: Sites, Subjectivities, and Relationships
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-78714-611-2

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 15 September 2014

Caroline J Gatrell

The purpose of this paper is to compare public health discourses on the importance of motherhood with organizational attitudes towards childbearing. It shows how pregnancy and the…

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to compare public health discourses on the importance of motherhood with organizational attitudes towards childbearing. It shows how pregnancy and the nurturing of infant children are valorized within public health discourses, which treat pregnancy and new maternity as a miraculous “project”, encouraging mothers to position maternity as central to their lives. By contrast, the paper shows how employers treat pregnancy and new motherhood as inconvenient and messy: as monstrous, at work.

Design/methodology/approach

The paper draws upon a database of qualitative netnographic (or internet-based) research. It analyses netnographic interactions between pregnant and newly maternal women. These virtual data are afforded the same validity as face-to-face research.

Findings

The paper demonstrates how maternal responsibilities for nurturing pregnancy and infant children, and the bio-medical properties of the maternal body, are central to public health discourses. By contrast, the maternal body is treated within organizations as alien, or monstrous.

Originality/value

The paper compares and contrasts public health valorizations of motherhood, with organizational tendencies to treat pregnancy/newly maternal bodies as monstrous. It highlights dichotomies faced by employed mothers. A continuing chasm between the social organization of maternity, and the attitudes of employers towards children and maternal bodies, is identified.

Details

Equality, Diversity and Inclusion: An International Journal, vol. 33 no. 7
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 2040-7149

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 1 March 1984

Thomas V. Greer

The International Code of Marketing of Breastmilk Substitutes, written by the World Health Organization and joined in by the United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund…

Abstract

The International Code of Marketing of Breastmilk Substitutes, written by the World Health Organization and joined in by the United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund (UNICEF), was passed by the World Health Assembly in mid‐1981. Intended as a model statute for member nations to adopt, it is now at the centre of a controversy that is both complex and dynamic. This controversy is simultaneously one of humanitarianism, community health, business, and — most of all — law. No doubt most readers are familiar with the heated campaigns of the past few years against infant formula distribution in the Third World. Today the weight of public opinion in most developed countries is with the Code, but that does not necessarily imply ultimate adoption and implementation in other countries. This article attempts, while taking no position on the Code's merits, to examine its possible future. Specifically, (1) Will the Code be adopted and implemented? (2) What is the context in which such decisions will be made?

Details

International Marketing Review, vol. 1 no. 3
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0265-1335

Book part
Publication date: 7 April 2022

Caroline Chautems

Since the 1990s, public health agencies as well as nutrition and child health experts have recognized breastfeeding as the most appropriate infant-feeding mode for optimal health…

Abstract

Since the 1990s, public health agencies as well as nutrition and child health experts have recognized breastfeeding as the most appropriate infant-feeding mode for optimal health and psycho-emotional development. Consequently, breastfeeding has become a standard of good mothering, internalized by mothers, who implement a demanding self-discipline to perform breastfeeding. This dedication reflects the delegation of biopolitics to individuals in modern neoliberal societies: authoritative experts inform new parents, who then bear the responsibility of their children's health risk management. They are expected to choose appropriate practices as part of a collective strategy of risk management and anticipation of the future by changing current behaviours, aiming at the emergence of a ‘healthy body and mind’ society. Among these practices, breastfeeding holds a central place due to medical consensus about its benefits. In my ethnography of postpartum consultations by independent midwives in Switzerland, I studied the breastfeeding practices and experiences of home birth parents as part of the ‘holistic care’ provided by these midwives. Shadowing midwives during their postpartum visits between 2014 and 2017, I witnessed parents committing to the body and emotional work required to carry out their ‘breastfeeding project’, designed in continuity with their out-of-hospital birth choice. During their follow-ups, midwives engage with parents in a shared construction of meanings around breastfeeding, anchoring parenting identities in the body. I explore in this chapter the issues raised by the production of lactating maternal bodies and how women engage in body and emotional work to achieve it.

Details

Reproductive Governance and Bodily Materiality
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-80071-438-0

Keywords

Book part
Publication date: 25 November 2019

Elaine S. Barry

Throughout human history and around the world, co-sleeping was the context for human evolutionary development. Currently, most of the world’s peoples continue to practice…

Abstract

Throughout human history and around the world, co-sleeping was the context for human evolutionary development. Currently, most of the world’s peoples continue to practice co-sleeping with infants, but there is increasing pressure on families in the West not to co-sleep. Research from anthropology, family studies, medicine, pediatrics, psychology, and public health is reviewed through the lens of a developmental theory to place co-sleeping within a developmental, theoretical context for understanding it. Viewing co-sleeping as a family choice and a normative, human developmental context changes how experts may provide advice and support to families choosing co-sleeping, especially in families making the transition to parenthood. During this transition, many decisions are made by parents “intuitively” (Ball, Hooker, & Kelly, 1999), making understanding the developmental consequences of some of those choices even more important. In Western culture, families are making “intuitive” decisions that research has shown to be beneficial, but families are not receiving complete messages about benefits and risks of co-sleeping. Co-sleeping can be an important choice for families as they make the life-changing transition to parenthood, if individualized messages about safe infant sleep practices (directed toward their individual family circumstances) are shared with them.

Details

Transitions into Parenthood: Examining the Complexities of Childrearing
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-83909-222-0

Keywords

1 – 10 of 37