Price: $34.95
Page Count: 394
Publication Date: February 2014
ISBN: 978-1-927335-28-4
“Mothering in the Age of Neoliberalism represents a significant contribution to scholars and researchers studying neoliberalism (by focusing attention on mothers who are often left out of the discourse), and gender/mothering (by emphasizing the importance of the political culture/structure to our micro expressions of identity). This volume offers a novel and much needed approach to the study of mothering and the role of public policy. This is not only timely, but well executed.”
—SARAH JANE GLYNN, Associate Director, Women’s Economic Policy, Center for American Progress
“This book does an admirable job in responding to the challenges of living and mothering in a neoliberal era. The topic is unambiguously significant and timely. We need this book.”
—MAY FRIEDMAN, School of Social Work, Ryerson University
Foreword: Countervisions
Christa Craven
Acknowledgements
Introduction: An Alternative Mother-Centred Economic Paradigm
Melinda Vandenbeld Giles
Section I: Mothering and Neoliberal Labour
Flexible Labour and Care Work
1. Multiplying Mothers: Migration and the Work of Mothering in Canada and the Philippines
Catherine Bryan
2 Across the Great Divide: Balancing Paid Work and Child Care in Neoliberal Times in Two Policy Jurisdictions in the Ottawa Valley, Canada
Patrizia Albanese, Megan Butryn, Louisa Hawkins and Courtney Manion
3 Mothers, Doulas, Flexible Labour and Embodied Care in the United States
Angela Castañeda and Julie Searcy
The Entrepreneurial Mother
4 “Doing It All...and Making It Look Easy!”: Yummy Mummies, Mompreneurs and the North American Neoliberal Crises of the Home
Gillian Anderson and Joseph G. Moore
5 Eco-Diapers: The American Discourse of Sustainable Motherhood
Chikako Takeshita
6 Negotiating Identities: The Case of Mompreneurs in Trinidad and Tobago
Talia Esnard
Section II: Mothering and the Neoliberal State
Austerity and the Silencing of Mothers
7 Making Invisible: The Eradication of “Homeless Mothers” from Public Policy in Ontario, Canada
Melinda Vandenbeld Giles
8 Neoliberalism and the De-politicising of Motherhood: Reflections on the Australian Experience
Joanne Baker
9 Austerity and Gender Neutrality: The Excluding of Women and Mothers from Public Policy in the UK
Jane Chelliah
The Making of “Good” Neoliberal Mothering Subjects
10 Welfare Queens and Anchor Babies: A Comparative Study of Stigmatized Mothers in the United States
Katrina Bloch and Tiffany Taylor
11 “Educating” Mothers through Media: The Therapy Market in South Korea and the Making of “Deviant” Children
Jesook Song and Yoonhee Lee
12 “Education of Mothers” in Turkey: Discourses on Maternal Propriety and Neoliberal Body Politics on Motherhood
Sevi Bayraktar
13 Affective Labour and Neoliberal Fantasies: The Gendered and Moral Economy of School Choice in England
Andrew Wilkins
Section III: Neoliberalism and the Nuclear Family
14 Redefining Single Motherhood: The 1990s Child Support Discourse and the Dismantling of the U.S. Welfare State
Celia Winkler
15 “Who Is in Charge of the Family?”: Religious Mothering, Neoliberalism, and REAL Women of Canada
Vanessa Reimer
16 When Neoliberalism Intersects with Post-Second Wave Mothering: Reinforcing Neo-traditional American Family Configurations and Exacerbating the Post-Second Wave Crisis in Femininity
Lynn O’Brien Hallstein
17 Deserving Children and “Risky Mothers”: Situating Public Policy and Maternal/Child Welfare in the Canadian Context
Pat Breton
Section IV: Countering Neoliberalism Through Maternal Activism
18 Dancing without Drums: Using Maternalism as a Political Strategy to Critique Neoliberalism in Ibadan, Nigeria
Grace Adeniyi Ogunyankin
19 Maternal Activism in the International Campaign for Justice in Bhopal (ICJB), India
Reena Shadaan
20 It’s Not the Meek Who Inherit the Earth: Low-Income Mothers Organize for Economic Justice in Canada
Katheryne Schulz
Epilogue
Jesook Song
List of Contributors
Melinda Vandenbeld Giles is a mother, feminist activist, and PhD candidate in socio-cultural anthropology at the University of Toronto. Her research involves working with mothers who are living with their children in Ontario motel rooms.