In the year 2000, United Nations world leaders set out eight targets, the UN Millennium Development Goals, for achieving improved standards of living at the micro level in poorer nations around the globe, by the year 2015. The papers in this collection present fine-detailed ethnographic studies of cultures in Africa and Oceania, with a focus primar …

This book provides a rare and in-depth examination of the narratives, experiences, and lived realities of abused mothers—a group of women who, despite being the victims, are often criticized, vilified, and stigmatized for failing to meet dominant ideologies of what a “good mother” is/should be, because they have lived and mothered in domestic …

There has been an increase of twin births and higher order multiple birth babies born in Canada and around the world in the past few decades. On Mothering Multiples: Complexities and Possibilities seeks to (re)explore, (re)present, and make meaning of the process of conception, pregnancy, childbirth, and mothering experiences with multiples. It fea …

In December of 2012 in Delhi, India a woman was gang raped, tortured, and inflicted with such bodily violence that she died as a result of the injuries. The case caused massive public protests in Delhi and throughout the Indian subcontinent. These large scale public mobilizations lead to attempts to change national laws pertaining to sexual violenc …

Using a variety of critical and theoretical approaches, the contributing scholars to this collection analyze culturally specific and globally held attitudes about mothers and mothering, as represented in world cinema. Examining films from a range of countries including Afghanistan, India, Iran, Eastern Europe, Canada, and the United States, the var …

Scholars turn to reproduction for its ability to illuminate the practices involved with negotiating personhood for the unborn, the newborn, and the already-existing family members, community members, and the nation. The scholarship in this volume draws attention to doula work as intimate and relational while highlighting the way boundaries are crea …

What’s Cooking, Mom? offers original and inventive narratives, including auto-ethno- graphic discussions of representations, discourses and practices about and by mothers regarding food and families. These narratives discuss the multiple strategies through which mothers manage feeding themselves and others, and how these are shaped by internation …

While scholarship on Caribbean women’s literature has grown into an established discipline, there are not many studies explicitly connected to the maternal subject matter, and among them only a few book-length texts have focalized motherhood and maternity in writings by Caribbean women. Reading/Speaking/Writing the Mother Text: Essays on Caribbea …

Natal Signs: Cultural Representations of Pregnancy, Birth and Parenting explores some of the ways in which reproductive experiences are taken up in the rich arena of cultural production. The chapters in this collection pose questions, unsettle assumptions, and generate broad imaginative spaces for thinking about representation of pregnancy, birth, …

Essential Breakthroughs: Conversations About Men, Mothers, and Mothering thinks from the nexus of gender, essentialism, and care. The authors creatively blend the philosophical and the personal to collectively argue that while gender is essential to our social and theoretical definitions of care, it is dangerously co-opted into naturalized discours …

The Mother-Blame Game is an interdisciplinary and intersectional examination of the phenomenon of mother-blame in the twenty-first century. As the socioeconomic and cultural expectations of what constitutes “good motherhood” grow continually narrow and exclusionary, mothers are demonized and stigmatized—perhaps now more than ever—for all th …

This book considers Black Motherhood through multiple and global lenses to engage the reader in an expanded reflection and to prompt further discourse on the intersection of race and gender within the construct of motherhood among Black women. With an aim to extend traditional treatments of Black motherhood that are often centered on a subordinated …

The 2007 death by self-induced strangulation in prison of nineteen year old inmate Ashley Smith drew a great deal of public attention. The case gave rise to a shocking verdict of homicide in the 2013 inquest into the cause of her death. In this book, I inquire into questions about of what social problem or phenomenon Ashley Smith is a “case,” a …

“Mothers Under Fire: Mothering in Conflict Areas” examines the experiences of women mothering in conflict areas. The aim of this collection is to engage with the nature and meaning of motherhood and mothering during times of war and/or in zones experiencing the threat of war. The essays in the collection reflect diverse disciplinary perspective …

Exploring the shared intersections of mothering, motherhood and sex work, Mothers, Mothering and Sex Work weaves together a range of voices from academic and sex-worker communities around the world. It features interdisciplinary contributions, scholarly essays, academic research, artwork, poetry, photography and experiential narratives. Notable amo …

In April 2011, a team of five people put together Slutwalk Toronto, a protest responding to slut shaming and victim blaming culture, exemplified by a recent event at Osgoode Hall Law School at York University. In the name of campus “safety”, Toronto Police Constable Michael Sanguinetti advised “women should avoid dressing like sluts in order …

Anansesem: Telling Stories and Storytelling African Maternal Pedagogies is a composite story on African-Canadian mothers’ experiences of teaching and learning while mothering. It seeks to celebrate the African mother’s everyday experiences and honour her embodied and cultural knowledges as important sites of meaning making and discovery for the …

Theory on mothers, mothering and motherhood has emerged as a distinct body of knowledge within Motherhood Studies and Feminist Theory more generally. This collection, the first ever anthology on maternal theory, introduces readers to this rich and diverse tradition of maternal theory. Composed of 50 chapters and covering more than three decades of …

In 1789, Armande, a wet nurse who is known for the mystical qualities of her breast milk, goes missing. Céleste, a cunning servant girl who Armande once saved from shame and starvation, sets out to find her. A snuffbox found in the snow, the unexpected arrival of a gentleman and the discovery of the wet nurse’s diary, deepen the mystery. Using …

In What We Hold in Our Hands, a teen mom longs for a different kind of life, a divorced dad struggles to come to terms with his ex- wife’s involvement in their son’s life, a woman cares for a dying younger sister, and a granddaughter wonders about the man her grandmother killed. The ten stories in this debut collection are about the difficult c …

This book isn’t about perfect moments with your infant. It doesn’t dispense sensible advice or proscribe schedules to manage the lawless days and nights of early maternity. Instead, this literary think piece, an Eat, Pray Love for the smarter mommy crowd, seesaws from disaster to delight, horror to grim resignation, much like motherhood it- sel …

As the fastest growing prison population worldwide, more and more women are living in cages and most of them are mothers. This alarm- ing trend has huge ramifications for women, children and communities across the globe. Empathy for mothers behind bars and concern for criminalized mothers in the community is in short supply. Mothers are criminalize …

To celebrate the twentieth anniversary of Sharon Hays’ landmark book, The Cultural Contradictions of Motherhood, this collection will revisit Hays’ concept of “intensive mothering” as a continuing, yet controversial representation of modern motherhood. In Hays’ original work, she spoke of “intensive mothering” as primarily being condu …

Performing Motherhood explores relationships between performativity and the maternal. Highlighting mothers’ lived experiences, this collection examines mothers’ creativity and agency as they perform in everyday life: in mothering, in activism, and in the arts. Chapters contain theoretically grounded works that emerge from multiple disciplines a …

The voices of Indigenous women world-wide have long been silenced by colonial oppression and institutions of patriarchal dominance. Recent generations of powerful Indigenous women have begun speaking out so that their positions of respect within their families and communities might be reclaimed. The book explores issues surrounding and impacting In …

This second edition, which includes an epilogue by Marilyn Waring, maps new advances in theories and practices in feminist economics and the valuation of women, care and nature since Marilyn Waring’s 1988 groundbreaking critique of the system of national accounts, If Women Counted. It features theoretical, practical and policy oriented contributi …

Patricia Hill Collins has given new meaning to the institution of motherhood throughout her publishing career. Introducing scholars to new conceptions, such as, “othermothering” and “mothering of mind,” Collins through her creative and multifaceted analysis of the institution of motherhood, has in a large sense, reconceived what it means to …

Not Exactly As Planned is a captivating, deeply moving account of adoption and the unexpected challenges of raising a child with fetal alcohol syndrome. Linda Rosenbaum’s life takes a major turn when her son, adopted at birth, is diagnosed with irreversible brain damage. With love, hope and all the medical knowledge she can accumulate, she sets o …

Queering Motherhood represents a unique and well-written collection of essays written by a diverse range of authors, including scholars, activists, and queer parents. The authors employ the “queering” framework effectively, raising intriguing examples and contexts in which mothering may and can be “queered.” The inclusion of understudied an …

Mothering Mennonite marks the first scholarly attempt to incorporate religious groundings in interpretations of motherhood. The essays included here broaden our understanding of maternal identity as something not only constructed within the family and by society at large, but also influenced significantly by historical traditions and contemporary b …

Neoliberal policies and austerity measures have unequivocally altered the landscape of women’s lives globally. The most detrimental effect has been on mothers as they are faced with increasing responsibility and decreasing resources. Despite mothers being the primary producers, consumers, and reproducers of the neoliberal world, their centrality …

Have Milk, Will Travel: Adventures in Breastfeeding reveals the lighter side of nursing and throws a lifeline to mothers in the thick of lactation. Knowing that other mothers struggle to breastfeed, go to extreme lengths to regulate milk supply, or even unwittingly pump breast milk while on the radio, readers can be assured that they are not alone …

Telling Truths: Storying Motherhood is a collection of creative non-fiction essays. Through story, contributing authors explore how expectations collide with the complex realities we face as we mother. They illustrate how mothering is inextricably linked to the positions we occupy within our specific socio-cultural contexts; how our versions of mot …

This collection of 18 scholarly works and personal accounts from Canada, the U.S., and Australia explores and analyzes issues of parenting by mothers with a variety of physical and mental disabilities. The book delves into pregnancy, birth, adoption, child custody, discrimination, and disability politics. Noticing dominant ideas, meanings, and narr …

“The collection of 23 essays provides an exciting snapshot of contemporary theorising on the maternal within psychoanalytic and social theory. The introduction serves as an excellent overview of this interdisciplinary field and its importance both to motherhood studies and broader feminist thinking. This book is a triumph!” —Assistant Profess …

The authors in this collection examine and critique motherhood memoir, alongside the texts of their own lives, while seeking to transform mothering practice— highlighting revolutionary praxis within books, or, when none is available, creating new visions for social change. Many essays interrogate the tensions of maternal narrative—the negotiati …

“I could have been born and raised in Africa. But my Spirit was in too much of a rush to be reincarnated...At six weeks I was chucked out into the new year of 1965 which wasn’t prepared to welcome on African baby, abandoned on a harsh English winter’s day.”

So begins Pauline’s spirited and moving story of her childhood and teenage years i …

A large proportion—and in many jurisdictions the majority—of incarcerated women are mothers. Popular attention is often paid to challenges faced by children of incarcerated mothers while incarcerated women themselves often do not “count” as mothers in mainstream discourse. This is the first anthology on incarcerated mothers’ experiences t …

Feminist parenting creates unique challenges. As women experience the unique powerlessness of motherhood, they also hold the uncomfortable power of acting as advocates for and as agents of socialization and social control over their children. Fathers may feel the desire for feminist parenting whilst experiencing a backlash and a lack of support, wh …

Birth of the Cool, a compilation album by jazz great Miles Davis, was released in 1957, the year before I was born. That album defined “cool jazz”: elegant, distant, hip, and stylish. Davis and his eight co- musicians made it all look so easy. From the time I was very young, I was trying to be as cool as Davis’s jazz: aloof, intellectual, des …

Contributors detail what it means to be an academic mother and to think about academic motherhood, while also exploring both the personal and specific institutional challenges academic women face, the multifaceted strategies different academic women are implementing to manage those challenges, and investigating different theoretical possibilities f …

There is a music of leaving, as surely as there is that of arriving. And it is this distinct soulful music that we often hear, however faintly, in the background of our lives. McCallum’s poems are about elephants being traipsed through the Queens Midtown Tunnel, an unstable child’s slide, and roaming island dogs. About a visit to a family home …

At twenty-seven years old, Robin Silbergleid decided to become a single mother. Not as a backup or Plan B, but as first choice. In her memoir Texas Girl, she raises fundamental questions about the nature of family and maternity at the turn of the twenty-first century. At a moment when SMCs grace the covers of magazines and Hollywood films, Texas Gi …

Mothers, Mothering and Motherhood across Cultural Differences, the first-ever Reader on the subject matter, examines the meaning and practice of mothering/ motherhood from a multitude of maternal perspectives. The Reader includes 22 chapters on the following maternal identities: Aboriginal, Adoptive, At-Home, Birth, Black, Disabled, East-Asian, Fem …

Laboring Positions aims to disrupt the dominant discourse on academic women’s mothering experiences. Black women’s maternity is assumed, and yet is also silenced within the disembodied, patriarchal, racist, antifamily, and increasingly neoliberal work environment of academia. This volume acknowledges the salience of the institutional challenges …

Mother of Invention: How Our Mothers Influenced Us As Feminist Academics and Activists is an interdisciplinary collection that combines feminist theory with life writing to explore the diverse ways that mothers, whether or not they themselves identity as “feminist,” inspire feminist consciousness in their daughters and sons. It features creativ …

Marilyn Gear Pilling brilliantly displayed her competence in describing women in My Nose is a Gherkin Pickle Gone Wrong (1996). Showing them “in all their nakedness ... the voice is neither sentimental nor fussy, the prose spare and fresh” (Quill & Quire). She continued her explorations of Canadian women in The Roseate Spoonbill of Happiness (2 …

In Mothering in East Asian Communities, Duncan and Wong seamlessly rupture a homogenous identity category—that of the “tiger mom.” The editors invoke the works of diverse contributors who critically challenge essentialized identity categories and racialized and sexualized experiences of women of color within the institution of motherhood and …

This book includes a remarkably diverse range of voices and perspectives on the under-researched topic of mothers electing to stay at home to care for their children or returning home after being in the paid workforce. As the first international collection of its kind, it explores with sensitivity and insight some of the deep cultural, personal and …