1. Narratives of Motherhood and Mothering in Fiction and Life Writing
- Author
-
Wahlström Henriksson, Helena, Williams, Anna, and Fahlgren, Margaretha
- Subjects
motherhood ,maternality ,maternal voice ,representations ,childlessness ,life writing ,fiction ,memoir ,mother-daughter relationships ,transgender ,family studies ,kinship ,fertility ,migration ,abortion ,resistance ,thema EDItEUR::J Society and Social Sciences::JH Sociology and anthropology::JHB Sociology::JHBK Sociology: family and relationships ,thema EDItEUR::J Society and Social Sciences::JB Society and culture: general::JBS Social groups, communities and identities::JBSF Gender studies, gender groups ,thema EDItEUR::J Society and Social Sciences::JB Society and culture: general::JBF Social and ethical issues::JBFH Migration, immigration and emigration ,thema EDItEUR::5 Interest qualifiers::5P Relating to specific groups and cultures or social and cultural interests::5PB Relating to peoples: ethnic groups, indigenous peoples, cultures and other groupings of people::5PBC Relating to migrant groups / diaspora communities or peoples ,thema EDItEUR::J Society and Social Sciences::JH Sociology and anthropology::JHB Sociology::JHBD Population and demography ,thema EDItEUR::D Biography, Literature and Literary studies ,thema EDItEUR::J Society and Social Sciences::JB Society and culture: general::JBC Cultural and media studies::JBCC Cultural studies - Abstract
This open access volume offers original essays on how motherhood and mothering are represented in contemporary fiction and life writing across several national contexts. Providing a broad range of perspectives in terms of geopolitical places, thematic concerns, and theoretical and interdisciplinary approaches, it demonstrates the significance of literary narratives for understanding and critiquing motherhood and mothering as social phenomena and subjective experiences. The chapters contextualize motherhood and mothering in terms of their particular national and cultural location and analyze narratives about mothers who are firmly placed in one national context, as well as those who are in “in-between” positions due to migrant experiences. The contributions foreground and link together the themes central to the volume: embodied experience and maternal embodiment; notions of what is “normal” or natural (or not) about motherhood; maternal health and illness; mother-daughter relations; maternality and memory; and the (im)possibilities of giving voice to the mother. They raise questions about how motherhood and mothering are marked by absence and/or presence, as well as by profound ambivalences.
- Published
- 2023
- Full Text
- View/download PDF