Abstract
By analysing narratives of infant feeding, this article explores how emotions are involved in the making of maternal subjectivity. The article is based on interviews with 21 Chinese middle-class mothers of small infants living in Beijing and their stories of how breastfeeding connects to intimacy and love. By merging post-structural approaches of subjectivity with affect theory, the article shows how the emotional dimension of breastfeeding promotes an ideal of mothers as primary caregivers. It finds that this ideal is challenged by practices of multiple caregiving in the mothers’ everyday lives. By exploring the performativity of emotions, the article adds another sociological perspective beyond those concerned with medical discourses of feeding infants. Also, as emotions have been neglected in much social research on Chinese mothering, it contributes to new sociological knowledge about mothering in China.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Journal | NORA - Nordic Journal of Feminist and Gender Research |
| Volume | 26 |
| Issue number | 4 |
| Pages (from-to) | 313-330 |
| Number of pages | 18 |
| ISSN | 0803-8740 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 2018 |
Keywords
- Breastfeeding
- emotions
- mothering
- mother–child bonding
- subjectification
- urban China