L'équipe du projet ERC CoachingRituals a le plaisir de vous convier à une demi-journée d'étude le 9 mai 2022 de 9h à 12h30 autour des parenting studies avec Jennie Bristow (Canterbury Christ Church University), Charlotte Faircloth (University College London) & Ellie Lee (Kent University). La séance se tiendra en anglais. Les questions pourront être posées en anglais et en français.
Le séminaire se tiendra en présentiel dans le local P61 (entrée via Bvd du Jardin Botanique 43) sur le site de l'Université Saint-Louis - Bruxelles mais également en distanciel (via Teams).
Abstracts :
‘From “protection” to “resilience” – the Covid-19 pandemic and the rhetoric of children’s wellbeing’ (Jennie Bristow)
This presentation explores a shift, in UK media and policy discourse, in the rhetoric of children, risk, and resilience. In Parenting Culture Studies (Lee et al., 2014), I examined the development of surveillance and regulation of contact between adults and children, in the context of fears about ‘stranger danger’ and child abuse, encapsulated by the safeguarding agenda developed in the 2000s. The dominant narrative here was that children and young people were at risk from adult society. During the pandemic, the focus on infectious disease, for which children and young people were considered unwitting (and often asymptomatic) vectors, became the basis for a narrative that presented them as posing a risk to adults; a claim that justified a range of social interventions with adverse impacts on children’s lives. This rhetorical shift was mediated by an emphasis on children’s ‘resilience’ in the face of lockdowns and school closures. Expert advice about how to build children’s resilience conceptualised this as privatised, therapeutic parenting skill, in the absence of social opportunities for in-person play or interaction outside the home.
‘Doing what is natural?’ Breastfeeding, intensive motherhood and the tensions of ‘instinctive’ parenting (Charlotte Faircloth)
Based on ethnographic research in London this paper explores the narratives of networks of women who breastfeed ‘to full term’ (typically for a period of several years) as part of a philosophy of ‘attachment parenting’ – an approach to childcare which validates long term proximity between child and care‐taker. Typically, this non-conventional feeding style is narrated as ‘natural’: ‘evolutionarily appropriate,’ ‘scientifically best,’ and ‘what feels right’ in the heart.
What follows in this presentation is a reflection on how these various ‘accountability strategies’ are given credence in narratives of mothering, understood as part of a wider shift towards a more ‘intensive’ parenting culture (Lee et al. 2014). As forms of authoritative knowledge, women typically prioritize ‘science’ and ‘evolution’ when they talk about their decision to breastfeed long‐term, as they have the effect of placing these practices beyond debate (they are simply what is ‘healthiest’). At the same time ‘feeling’ or ‘instinct' often provides a last resort in the relentless demand for accountability which now accompanies the topic of infant feeding. The paper therefore makes a contribution to wider sociological debates around the ways in which society and behaviour are regulated, and how particular knowledge claims are interpreted, internalized and mobilized both by policy makers, and individuals in the course of their ‘identity work’. In particular, it explores the tensions around autonomy and choice in practicing an ‘instinctive’ parenting style.
The problem of autonomy: pregnancy, alcohol and the development of healthcare policy and practice in the UK (Ellie Lee & Rachel Arkell)
The problem of autonomy is pronounced in pregnancy; it may be argued that policy can and should play a role in increasing the healthiness of pregnancies, but what is sometimes termed ‘pregnancy policing’ is a continual concern. With a focus on UK countries, this paper discusses recent developments in what we have termed a ‘post-choice’ policy framework for pregnancy, which centres on alcohol abstinence. We consider how and why precautionary thinking, which informs parenting culture in general, has developed so as to make practices including mandatory screening for alcohol consumption, meconium testing, and promotion of use of long-acting contraceptives features of healthcare in the UK. We show how autonomy has been sublimated as a principle in favour of perceived potential for risk reduction and conclude that policy has taken a turn that is likely either ineffectual or harmful.
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