Mothers, Mothering, and Globalization





Price: $34.95

Page Count: 250

Publication Date: October 2017

ISBN: 978-1-77258-132-4

Mothers, Mothering, and Globalization is an anthology that cogently and powerfully 
examines the diverse and complex experiences of motherhood and mothering from 
a broad interdisciplinary perspective. The lucid analysis of how globalization 
influences the lives of mothers, especially in regard to cultural, political, historical, 
social, and economic factors, provides a compelling examination of the myriad of 
relationships between mothering and globalization. The collection also surveys 
multiple approaches to mothers, mothering, and globalization and contributes to a 
nascent dialogue through its interrogation of the impact of globalization on mothers 
and mothering practices through the lenses of feminist ideologies; literary criticism; 
and cultural, social, and economic analyses. 

“Here is a book that insists on taking a topic that has been exhaustively
explored—globalization—but provides a new lens with which to study it, mothering
and motherhood. In this fine collection, the editors and contributors beautifully
outline globalization’s impact on women who identify as mothers, providing
interdisciplinary approaches to rethink motherhood and maternal roles on a global
scale.”
—CRISTINA HERRERA, Associate Professor and Chair, Department of Chicano and
Latin American Studies, California State University, Fresno

“This collection brings to light the impact of globalizing employment pat- terns,
migration and precarious living as well as the rapidly shifting social context in which
norms and values around mothering are forged. Through these stories we hear the
voices of mothers as they navigate complex motherhood roles that often demand
absence from children or forms of resistance to social norms and cultural
expectations. We hear in the voices of women in this book that mothering is
complicated work and challenges emerge from many dimensions—social, economic,
political and geographic. The stories bring to life both the necessity and the
processes for difficult choices from within an often economically and culturally
limited array of options.“
—JILL ALLISON, Global Health Coordinator, Memorial University of Newfoundland,
author of Motherhood and Infertility in Ireland: Understanding the Presence of
Absence

Acknowledgements

Introduction Formulating Mothers, Mothering, and Globalization
Dorsía Smith Silva, Laila Malik, and Abigail L. Palko

I. MOTHERING, GLOBALIZATION, AND IDENTITY

Chapter One
Mothering from Afar:
Cinema and the Ambivalence of Transnational Motherhood
Dwayne Avery

Chapter Two
Madre/Moneda:
The Moral Value of Motherwork in Immigrant Nanny Personal Narratives
Elizabeth Cummins Muñoz

Chapter Three
Of Bodies, Borders, and European Belonging: Trial of a Child Denied and the
Sterilization of Roma Mothers in the Czech Republic
Roxana Cazan

Chapter Four
Transnational Mothering Online: Community Blogs by Diasporic Indian Mothers
Sucharita Sarkar

Chapter Five
The Doing of Mothering from the Margins
Gavaza Maluleke

Chapter Six
“Tigerish Mom” in the Dragon’s Den: A Journey of Negotiating Culture and Finding
One’s Voice
Aimee Tiu Wu

Chapter Seven
Relying on Mothers: Motherwork and Maternal Thinking in Development
Empowerment Discourse
Michelle Hughes Miller
128

INTERLUDE

Chapter Eight

At Sea
Jessica Adams
II. MOTHERING, GLOBALIZATION, AND NATION

Chapter Nine
Abortion Politics in Edna O’Brien’s Down by the River
Abigail L. Palko

Chapter Ten
Mothering (in) Which Nation? Migration, Citizenship, and Motherhood of Filipino
Immigrant Women Raising Japanese-Filipino Children
Jocelyn O. Celero

Chapter Eleven
A Motherhood Manifesto: Ivy Queen’s Vendetta
Catherine Marsh Kennerley

Chapter Twelve
Mothering Beyond National Borders: Trajectories of Zimbabwean Migrant Women in
South Africa
Kezia Batisai

Chapter Thirteen
Positive Engagements with Globalization: Lessons from Maternal Activists in
Transnational Women’s Groups during the Liberian Civil War
Crystal M. Whetstone

Chapter Fourteen
Transnational Mothering and Trauma in Edwidge Danticat’s Breath, Eyes, Memory
Dorsía Smith Silva

About the Contributors

Dorsía Smith Silva is an Associate Professor of English at the University of Puerto Rico, Río Piedras. She is the co-editor of the Caribbean without Borders: Caribbean Literature, Language and Culture (2008), Critical Perspectives on Caribbean Literature and Culture (2010), and Feminist and Critical Perspectives on Caribbean Mothering (2013), and editor of Latina/Chicana Mothering (2011). She is the co-editor of Mothers and Daughters (2017) and Travellin’ Mama (2017).

Laila Malik is a Toronto-based writer, editor, researcher and mother of two. She produces publications for the Association for Women’s Rights in Development.

Abigail L. Palko is the Director of the Maxine Platzer Lynn Women’s Center at the University of Virginia. Her book, Imagining Motherhood in Contemporary Irish and Caribbean Literature, is available from Palgrave Macmillan. She is the co-editor of Cultural Representations of Breastfeeding (2017).