After the Second World War mothering became an object of social, political, medical and psychiatric investigation. These investigations would in turn serve as the bases for new campaigns around the practice, meaning and significance of maternity. This brought attention to mothers' emotional repertoires, and particularly their experiences of distress. In this thesis I interrogate the use of maternal distress, asking how and why maternal distress was made visible by professions, institutions and social movements in postwar Britain. To address this I investigate how maternal mental health was constituted both as an object of clinical interrogation and used as evidence of the need for reform. Social and medical studies were used to develop and circulate ideas about the causes and prevalence of distress, making possible a new series of interventions: the need for more information about users of the health care service, an enhanced interest in disorders at the milder end of the psychiatric 'spectrum', and raised expectations of health. I argue that the approaches of those studying maternal distress were shaped by their particular agendas. General practitioners, psychiatrists, activists in the Women's Liberation Movement, clinicians interested in child abuse and social scientists, sought to understand and explain mothers' emotions. These involvements were shaped by the foundation of the National Health Service in 1948 and the crystallization of support for alternative forms of care into self-help groups by 1979. The story of maternal distress is one of competing and complementary professional and political interests, set against the backdrop of increasing pessimism about the family. I argue that the figure of the distressed mother has exerted considerable influence in British society. As such, this research has important implications for our understanding of how mental distress developed into a mode of social and political critique across the late twentieth century.

Master of Visual Arts / My research paper is an attempt to begin to articulate and document my lived experience of being both a mother and an artist. Underpinned by research into the cultural and social history of the experience of mothering and the cultural institution of ‘motherhood’, I revisit and reinterpret some of my earlier works, and explore issues of identity brought up by the relational experience of mothering. I seek out other women who are, or have been, both mothers and artists – particularly sculptors – whose work relates to their subjective experiences of mothering. From them I select and investigate both works, and reflections, which I feel resonate with my own experience of combining the roles of mother and artist. Against this background I describe and interpret my own recent body of work, drawn from my subjective experience of becoming, and being, a mother whilst continuing my artistic practice.

This series of studies investigated the sensitivity of mothers towards the behaviour of their preverbal infants. More specifically, the investigation examined the consistency with which mothers identified what they considered to be communicative acts by their infants aged 6, 9, and 12 months, and the contingency and appropriateness of their maternal responses. The ability of other female adults to identify the same infant acts as communicative as the mothers was also investigated. In Studies one and two, 35 infants and their mothers were videotaped in a laboratory setting. Three weeks after the videotaping session, the mothers were asked to view a five-minute section and code the stream of infant behaviour into periods when they believed that their infant was engaging in communicative behaviours ('on' events) and periods when they considered that the infants were not ('off' events). This process was repeated three months after the first coding. At each coding session the mothers coded the videotape twice. Each mother's coded records were compared, in pairs, within and across coding sessions and the observed levels of agreement were calculated. A randomization procedure using 1000 iterations of the whole 'on' and 'off' events was used to determine the meaningfulness of the observed level of agreement between pairs of codings by providing distributions of chance levels of agreement with which the observed levels could be compared. Levels of agreement that exceeded chance values (p equals or is less than .05) were taken as evidence of consistency of maternal response. Consistency in the identification of communicative acts by other female adults (OAs) was investigated using a sample of 12 of the videotapes. Each videotape was coded by three separate OAs. The significance of the observed levels of agreement between the mother's coding and those of the OAs was determined using the randomization procedure. The results indicated that at each infant age, mothers were able to identify consistently their infant's communicatively salient behaviours, even over inter-coding intervals of three months. Further, both OAs and mothers identified the same infant behaviours as communicative. The third study investigated the abilities of a different sample of mothers and infants to describe the topography and meaning of their infants' behaviours during the 'on' events. Mothers' descriptions of their infants' behaviour during the 'on' events were also used to describe changes in the criteria that they used to identify infant behaviours as communicatively salient. Results indicated that the complexity of the criteria that the mothers used changed across infant age. First, mothers of younger infants were more likely, than mothers of older infants, to describe a single infant behaviour as being communicatively salient. The latter were more likely to identify two or three co-occurring infant behaviours as salient. Second, when more than one infant behaviour was identified in an 'on' event, the mothers of the older infants were more likely than the mothers of younger infants to state that all of the behaviours that they identified were communicatively important. These findings were interpreted to mean that mothers of older infants required more complex constellations of behaviour during the 'on' events in order to identify those behaviours as communicative. Study 4 investigated the contingency and appropriateness of the mothers' responses to the segments of their infants' behaviour that they identified as being communicative. Across infant age, findings indicated that the mothers' verbal responses to their infants were contingent upon whether they considered that their infants were engaged in communicatively salient behaviours. During periods of infant behaviour that the mothers identified as being communicative, mothers talked significantly more to their infants than they did when their infant's behaviour was considered to be non-communicative. Further, mothers' verbal responses were interpreted as being appropriate in two ways. First, during the 'on' events, changes occurred over infant age in the balance between the use of utterances designed to attract and maintain the attention of the infant (Attentional Directives) and those designed to provide comment on infant behaviour (Feedback). This shift is in keeping with widely reported changes in infant behaviour as children grow older (i.e., older infants' play a greater role in initiating and maintaining episodes of interaction). Second, during periods when the mothers considered that their infants were not communicating ('off' events) they rarely used 'Feedback' verbal responses. During 'off' events, mothers maintained high levels of 'Attentional Directive' talk, irrespective of infant age. Taken collectively, these studies provide evidence that supports the view that mothers are sensitive to what they consider to be communicative behaviours by their infants in terms of the consistency, contingency and appropriateness of their behaviour. The unique features of this investigation, the generality of the findings and the implications for future research are discussed in the final chapter.

This dissertation examines how changing conceptions of risk responsibility relate to changing ideas of citizenship and the public sphere. Using the empirical case study of chemical body burdens, and drawing on focus groups and in-depth interviews, in addition to a twenty-year framing analysis of Canadian news media coverage of environmental contamination, this dissertation examines how risks are individualized through an ideology of “precautionary consumption.” Precautionary consumption encourages self-protection through consumer-based vigilance (e.g., by buying organic produce or “natural” cleaning products) and shifts the focus away from the state’s responsibility to regulate human and environmental exposure to contaminants. Three key findings emerge from this research. First, over twenty years of Canadian media coverage, precautionary consumption is increasingly prominent in shaping the problem frame around chemical contamination. As a media frame, the ideology of precautionary consumption reconceptualises chemical body burdens as an environmental problem affecting everyone equally to an individual problem that afflicts unaware consumers. Second, interview data suggests that the practice of mediating individual exposure to chemicals is overwhelmingly characterized as a caregiving responsibility requiring a mother’s vigilance. Interview respondents interpreted this responsibility through a dual ideological lens comprised of intensive mothering and precautionary consumption. Interviews with mothers from low-income households furthermore suggest that practices of chemical mediation vary by social class, and that access to protective commodities is highly uneven. Third, interview data also suggest that respondents viewed vigilant shopping practices as part of accepting greater personal responsibility for chemical pollution as a health threat and larger environmental problem. Respondents dismissed the transformative potential of the state in addressing body burdens; in contrast, they expressed confidence in their power as consumers and in the responsiveness of the market to protect them from chemical threats. The concluding chapter of the dissertation discusses how precautionary consumption draws our attention away from the universality of risk, and the responsibilities of the state for managing body burdens as a collective risk.

This dissertation examines how changing conceptions of risk responsibility relate to changing ideas of citizenship and the public sphere. Using the empirical case study of chemical body burdens, and drawing on focus groups and in-depth interviews, in addition to a twenty-year framing analysis of Canadian news media coverage of environmental contamination, this dissertation examines how risks are individualized through an ideology of “precautionary consumption.” Precautionary consumption encourages self-protection through consumer-based vigilance (e.g., by buying organic produce or “natural” cleaning products) and shifts the focus away from the state’s responsibility to regulate human and environmental exposure to contaminants. Three key findings emerge from this research. First, over twenty years of Canadian media coverage, precautionary consumption is increasingly prominent in shaping the problem frame around chemical contamination. As a media frame, the ideology of precautionary consumption reconceptualises chemical body burdens as an environmental problem affecting everyone equally to an individual problem that afflicts unaware consumers. Second, interview data suggests that the practice of mediating individual exposure to chemicals is overwhelmingly characterized as a caregiving responsibility requiring a mother’s vigilance. Interview respondents interpreted this responsibility through a dual ideological lens comprised of intensive mothering and precautionary consumption. Interviews with mothers from low-income households furthermore suggest that practices of chemical mediation vary by social class, and that access to protective commodities is highly uneven. Third, interview data also suggest that respondents viewed vigilant shopping practices as part of accepting greater personal responsibility for chemical pollution as a health threat and larger environmental problem. Respondents dismissed the transformative potential of the state in addressing body burdens; in contrast, they expressed confidence in their power as consumers and in the responsiveness of the market to protect them from chemical threats. The concluding chapter of the dissertation discusses how precautionary consumption draws our attention away from the universality of risk, and the responsibilities of the state for managing body burdens as a collective risk.

This thesis explores elementary schools’ homework practices on Prince Edward Island. I employ a feminist perspective that incorporates Foucault’s concept of governmentality (Foucault, 1991a) to examine homework as a ‘site’ where institutions (family and school) interact and power circulates. I focus on the ways in which the daily lives and subjectivities of mothers, and to a lesser extent teachers, are organized and regulated in the process of making homework work. I assembled and analyzed reports and policies related to education reform, parental involvement and homework. I draw on Foucault’s approach to genealogy (Foucault, 1984) to examine how homework has been established in these texts as a ‘good’ educational practice for young students, in spite of its dubious effects on educational achievement. Mothers and teachers are explicitly and implicitly addressed in education policy and practice as primary agents for the accomplishment of homework. Following qualitative research methodology, I conducted twenty in-depth interviews with mothers and teachers of elementary aged students. These mothers and teachers often have ambivalent feelings about homework, sharing frustrations about its effects on family time and relations and doubting its value for children. At the same time, ‘doing homework’ was closely linked to being a ‘good mother.’ Thus, my analysis draws attention to the complex ways that homework and parental involvement discourses work on and through people, to produce particular kinds of experiences and feelings. While homework may ‘fail’ to accomplish its professed educational aims for students, I argue that it serves to render women responsible for growing portions of educational labour. My study sheds light on the workings of power in the home/school relationship and more generally on the workings of neoliberal governance and educational reform. Modern government works through routine administration of our lives, in schools and families, and other institutions, often through persuasion, incitement and engagement rather than through explicit policy. I suggest the daily practice of homework is a concrete example of this and, extending Foucault’s analysis through feminist perspectives, I explore the unequal operation and effects of homework for those who are its main targets.

Mothers with cancer are required to make medical and social decisions while attempting to balance their own physical, psychological and social needs with the needs of their children. To explore the decision-making process, in-depth interviews were conducted with 7 mothers with a cancer diagnosis and children aged birth to 6 years. They were asked to describe: 1) types of decisions; 2) process they used to make decisions; 3) conditions of their lives; 4) meanings assigned to their decisions. The grounded theory method was used. The driving force behind decision-making was the mothers’ desire to maintain the mother-child bond, influenced by the context of their lives. Making decisions to maintain the mother-child bond involved managing: 1) distance; 2) physical changes; 3) the information shared; and 4) the ongoing chain of decisions. The findings have implications for improving the quality and usefulness of psychosocial supports for mothers with cancer and their families.

This thesis explores elementary schools’ homework practices on Prince Edward Island. I employ a feminist perspective that incorporates Foucault’s concept of governmentality (Foucault, 1991a) to examine homework as a ‘site’ where institutions (family and school) interact and power circulates. I focus on the ways in which the daily lives and subjectivities of mothers, and to a lesser extent teachers, are organized and regulated in the process of making homework work. I assembled and analyzed reports and policies related to education reform, parental involvement and homework. I draw on Foucault’s approach to genealogy (Foucault, 1984) to examine how homework has been established in these texts as a ‘good’ educational practice for young students, in spite of its dubious effects on educational achievement. Mothers and teachers are explicitly and implicitly addressed in education policy and practice as primary agents for the accomplishment of homework. Following qualitative research methodology, I conducted twenty in-depth interviews with mothers and teachers of elementary aged students. These mothers and teachers often have ambivalent feelings about homework, sharing frustrations about its effects on family time and relations and doubting its value for children. At the same time, ‘doing homework’ was closely linked to being a ‘good mother.’ Thus, my analysis draws attention to the complex ways that homework and parental involvement discourses work on and through people, to produce particular kinds of experiences and feelings. While homework may ‘fail’ to accomplish its professed educational aims for students, I argue that it serves to render women responsible for growing portions of educational labour. My study sheds light on the workings of power in the home/school relationship and more generally on the workings of neoliberal governance and educational reform. Modern government works through routine administration of our lives, in schools and families, and other institutions, often through persuasion, incitement and engagement rather than through explicit policy. I suggest the daily practice of homework is a concrete example of this and, extending Foucault’s analysis through feminist perspectives, I explore the unequal operation and effects of homework for those who are its main targets.

Mothers with cancer are required to make medical and social decisions while attempting to balance their own physical, psychological and social needs with the needs of their children. To explore the decision-making process, in-depth interviews were conducted with 7 mothers with a cancer diagnosis and children aged birth to 6 years. They were asked to describe: 1) types of decisions; 2) process they used to make decisions; 3) conditions of their lives; 4) meanings assigned to their decisions. The grounded theory method was used. The driving force behind decision-making was the mothers’ desire to maintain the mother-child bond, influenced by the context of their lives. Making decisions to maintain the mother-child bond involved managing: 1) distance; 2) physical changes; 3) the information shared; and 4) the ongoing chain of decisions. The findings have implications for improving the quality and usefulness of psychosocial supports for mothers with cancer and their families.

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