Performing Breastfeeding

Embodiment, Ethics and the Maternal Subject

Bibliographic Data

ID3946019
AuthorsR M Shaw (0000-0002-6331-1303, Victoria School of Management, corresponding author), Rhonda Shaw (0000-0001-9351-7479, Lecturer in Sociology at Victoria University)
Year2004
Volume78
Issue1
Pages99-116
Publication date2004-11-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueFeminist Review (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0141-7789 • E-ISSN: 1466-4380
PublisherSAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1057/palgrave.fr.9400186
OpenAlexW2060488399
LanguageEN
Citations received19
References cited30

Many feminist sociologists would agree that most breastfeeding research to date has been primarily undertaken from the perspective of medical and public health discourses. While there is evidence of a shift in research on breastfeeding to qualitative studies that focus on the lived experiences of breastfeeding women, this article addresses a number of concerns remaining in the literature surrounding breastfeeding. First, it questions the absence of breastfeeding as a legitimate philosophical topic, and, as a corollary, the invisibility of breastfeeding women as moral or ethical subjects. Second, by drawing on Michel Foucault's account of ethics and Judith Butler's notion of performativity, it is suggested that breastfeeding is best conceptualized as a gendered and embodied ethical practice rather than an aspect of one's being. Finally, this materialist approach to theorizing breastfeeding is discussed in relation to the Lucy Lawless poster that was released in Aotearoa New Zealand to launch World Breastfeeding Week in August 2002

Aotearoa · Breastfeeding · Embodied cognition · Epistemology · Invisibility · Sociology · Breastfeeding Practices and Influences · Gender Studies · Medicine · Philosophy · Pediatrics

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