Multiple Maternities

Performative Motherhood and Support Seeking in South Africa

Bibliographic Data

ID2227609
AuthorsBrady G’sell (University of Iowa, corresponding author)
Year2020
Volume46
Issue1
Pages3-29
Publication date2020-09-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueSigns: Journal of Women in Culture and Society (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0097-9740 • E-ISSN: 1545-6943
PublisherUniversity of Chicago Press (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1086/709217
OpenAlexW3084125703
LanguageEN
Citations received4
References cited44

This article makes a case for a performative understanding of motherhood through an analysis of low-income women’s performances of motherhood in an inner-city neighborhood in Durban, South Africa. Drawing upon performativity theory, I track how women applied repertoires of speaking and acting to garner resources from a variety of persons and institutions. On a local level, these performances of motherhood have important political and economic stakes. In South Africa, 35 percent unemployment and historically low marriage rates have put once-reliable means of supporting children—employment, husbands, and husbands’ family—out of reach. Although women are expected to raise children properly, they are not regarded as legitimate recipients of aid in their own right. Children are considered the deserving beneficiaries. Thus, women can only access resources as maternal caregivers to needy children. At a theoretical level, it is critical that feminist scholars attend to the sociolinguistic resources used to perform adequate motherhood because the available repertoires of language and practice significantly influence how motherhood is experienced and understood. A performative analysis of motherhood offers a different vantage point on enduring discussions about power and agency and enables us to track how the categories of understanding and experience come about and work in the world. Data for this article are drawn from eighteen months of ethnographic and archival research with female caregivers, families, and aid agencies

Aesthetics · Agency (philosophy) · Ethnography · Performative utterance · Performativity · Political science · Politics · Power (physics) · Social science · Sociology · Variety (cybernetics) · Work (physics) · Anthropology · Children's Rights and Participation · Gender Studies · Language, Discourse, Communication Strategies · Law · Multilingual Education and Policy

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