In global politics, women's bodies are policed, objectified, surveilled, and feared, with particular attention paid to both their met or unmet procreative potential. While the significance of motherhood varies across cultures, it is, as this book argues, connected not just to gender and sexuality, but also to religion and nationality. Reproduction is central to the flourishing of any nation or culture, and therefore motherhood is a major signifier of women's
relationship to the state. This is so much the case that states enact laws about which women can bear children and have supported sterilization efforts in cases where women are not deemed appropriate bearers
of the nation. States also legislate reproductive technologies, adoption, and government support for parenting. By considering representations and narratives of maternity, this volume shows how practices of global politics shape and are shaped by the gendered norms and institutions that underpin motherhood. Motherhood matters in global politics. Yet, the diverse ways in which performances and practices of motherhood are constituted by and are constitutive of other
dimensions of political life are frequently obscured, or assumed to be of little interest to scholars, policymakers, and practitioners. Featuring innovative and diverse chapters on the
politics of motherhood as an institution, this collection shows that maternality is troubled, complicated, and heterogeneous in global politics. Thus, performances and practices of motherhood warrant closer and more sustained scrutiny. This book builds on work by feminist international relations scholars, extending into disruptive spaces of queer theory, literary critique, and post-colonial studies. The chapters in this book consider the meaning of motherhood, particularly during times of war
versus peace; the connections between motherhood and nationhood (and reproduction of the state); and care work and maternal labor, particularly as performed by transnational workers. Ultimately, this
book demonstrates the complex interconnections between the individual, the state, and the global through the lens of maternality.
In global politics, women's bodies are policed, objectified, surveilled, and feared, with particular attention paid to both their met or unmet procreative potential. While the significance of motherhood varies across cultures, it is, as this book argues, connected not just to gender and sexuality, but also to religion and nationality. Reproduction is central to the flourishing of any nation or culture, and therefore motherhood is a major signifier of women's
relationship to the state. This is so much the case that states enact laws about which women can bear children and have supported sterilization efforts in cases where women are not deemed appropriate bearers
of the nation. States also legislate reproductive technologies, adoption, and government support for parenting. By considering representations and narratives of maternity, this volume shows how practices of global politics shape and are shaped by the gendered norms and institutions that underpin motherhood. Motherhood matters in global politics. Yet, the diverse ways in which performances and practices of motherhood are constituted by and are constitutive of other
dimensions of political life are frequently obscured, or assumed to be of little interest to scholars, policymakers, and practitioners. Featuring innovative and diverse chapters on the
politics of motherhood as an institution, this collection shows that maternality is troubled, complicated, and heterogeneous in global politics. Thus, performances and practices of motherhood warrant closer and more sustained scrutiny. This book builds on work by feminist international relations scholars, extending into disruptive spaces of queer theory, literary critique, and post-colonial studies. The chapters in this book consider the meaning of motherhood, particularly during times of war
versus peace; the connections between motherhood and nationhood (and reproduction of the state); and care work and maternal labor, particularly as performed by transnational workers. Ultimately, this
book demonstrates the complex interconnections between the individual, the state, and the global through the lens of maternality.
1. Motherhood and Maternality in Global Politics
Anna L. Weissman and Lucy B. Hall
Performances
2. A Mother's Violence in Global Politics: An Interrogation of
Violent Femininity and Motherhood Narratives
Katerina Krulisova
3. Protestant paramilitary mothering: Mothers and daughters in the
Northern Irish Troubles
Sandra McEvoy
4. Stigmatized acts of motherhood
Jamie J. Hagen
5. Logics of Protection and the Discursive Construction of Refugee
Fathers
Lucy B. Hall
State
6. Bearing Peace and War: Sex, Motherhood, and the Treaty of the
Pyrenees
Laura Sjoberg
7. Ideal Citizens and Family Values: The Politics of Reproductive
Fitness
Anna L. Weissman
8. Mother Knows Best? Critical Maternal Ethics and the Rape
Clause
Rebecca Wilson
9. Queering Reproductive Aid
Corinne Mason
10. Troubling Conceptions of Motherhood: State Feminism and
Political Agency of Women in the Global South
Anwar Mhajne and Crystal Whetstone
Labour
11. Feminist Politics Still Needs Motherhood
Amanda Watson
12. Privatised Bodies in Public Locations: C-Sections, Toddler
Meltdowns and the Neoliberal Gaze
Penny Griffin
13. Raising children in strangeness: cosmopolitan mothering and
domestic helpers in expatriate families
Catherine Goetze
14. Celebrity global motherhood: Maternal care and cosmopolitan
obligation
Annika Bergman Rosamond
15. Earthborn: Maternity and Natality on a Hurting Planet
Cara Daggett
16. Speaking from the Margins of Motherhood: A Politics
(M)otherwise
Sara C. Motta
Lucy Hall is a lecturer at the University of Amsterdam. Lucy's
research focuses on the gendered construction of protection and the
gendered logics of statist ontologies of protection. In particular,
Lucy is interested in the protection of conflict-affected
populations (civilians, internally displaced persons and refugees)
and the ways in which states discursively construct protection
through existing and evolving laws, normative frameworks,
policies and practices.
Anna L. Weissman is a PhD Candidate and Instructor at the
University of Florida, and former FLAS Fellow at UF's Center for
European Studies (2013-2017). Her research theorizes the relations
between sexuality, reproduction, and national identity. Anna
focuses on same-sex reproductive rights in Europe, uncovering the
intertwining histories of normative sexuality, traditional
procreative gender roles, and the mythology of the nation-state,
developing the concept of
Repronormativity. Anna has published in the Journal of GLBT Family
Studies, the International Feminist Journal of Politics, the
Journal of Women, Politics, and Policy, and in the Routledge
Handbook of Gender and Security.
Laura J. Shepherd is Professor of International Relations at the
University of Sydney, Australia, and a Visiting Senior Fellow at
the LSE Centre for Women, Peace and Security in London, UK. Laura's
primary research focuses on the United Nations Security Council's
"Women, Peace and Security" agenda. She has written extensively on
the formulation of UNSCR1325 and subsequent Women, Peace and
Security resolutions. Laura is author/editor of several books, and
many academic articles
in journals such as European Journal of International Relations,
International Affairs, and International Feminist Journal of
Politics.
"We are all affected by, and have a stake in, how life on the
planet is reproduced. Yet we pay little attention to the power
relations and global impact of maternality, even in the midst of
planetary crises. Filling an enormous gap, leading scholars in this
break-through collection ask hard questions across wide-ranging
issues and deliver cogent analyses that demand our attention. Time
to listen up!ââ" -- V. Spike Peterson, Professor of
International Relations, University of Arizona
"With its extensive range of rich, diverse, beautifully
intersectional and thoughtful chapters, this collection is fabulous
to see. It will be an excellent and much needed resource to develop
and extend knowledge about the deep but still woefully
under-theorized connections between motherhood and global politics.
As Adrienne Rich presciently noted in her ground-breaking 1996
bookâMotherhood is both experience and institution. It is also
globalâand
as such it is surely time that international politics analysts and
academics took much better notice. This book will be no better
place to start." -- Marysia Zalewski, Professor of International
Relations, Cardiff
University, UK
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