'People try and police your behaviour': the impact of surveillance on mothers and grandmothers' perceptions and experiences of infant feeding

Pregnancy and motherhood are increasingly subjected to surveillance. Research has highlighted that public breastfeeding is difficult to navigate within existing constructs of acceptable femininity; but, at the same time, mothers who formula feed are often located within discourses of the failed maternal subject. This paper draws on intergenerational reserach with six mother/grandmother pairs from marginalised urban Welsh locales, which involved eliciations interviews around the everyday artefacts that participants presented to symbolise their experiences of motherhood and infant care. We examine the negotiation of acceptable motherhood in relation to the intrusive policing of lifestyle choices, consumption and infant feeding from family, friends and strangers. The paper argues that the moral maze of surveyed motherhood renders infant feeding a challenging, and challenged, space for women

Surveillance and stigma during pregnancy and early motherhood: the changing experiences of mothers and grandmothers

Pregnancy and motherhood have come to be increasingly subjected to surveillance, by medical professionals, kin and also strangers. Rates of breastfeeding in developed countries vary significantly but research with mothers in countries with low breastfeeding rates has highlighted that public breastfeeding is difficult to navigate within existing constructs of acceptable femininity, due to the sexualisation of the breast in contemporary society. This paper draws on indepth qualitative reserach with six mother/grandmother pairs, where the mothers' infants were aged under 25 months. Data production involved eliciation interviews around the everyday artefacts that participants presented to symbolise their experiences of motherhood and infant care. Participants who were new mothers described the ways in which their behaviours were monitored by those around them, including service-sector employees, friends, family and, to a lesser extent, health professionals. The intergenerational nature of the study allowed a focus on the ways in which surveillance of infant feeding, and mothering more generally, has changed over time, and grandmothers reported considerably lower levels of scrutiny. Drawing on Foucauldian concepts of surveilance, the paper examines the negotiation of acceptable motherhood in relation to the intrusive policing of lifestyle choices, consumption and infant feeding. The paper argues that the moral maze of surveyed motherhood acts to close down mothers agency and situate them in a psychological impasse where ideas of choice and ownership become restricted

Negotiating Closed Doors and Constraining Deadlines: The Potential of Visual Ethnography to Effectually Explore Private and Public Spaces of Motherhood and Parenting

Pregnancy and motherhood are increasingly subjected to surveillance, by medical professionals, the media and the general public; and discourses of ideal parenting are propagated alongside an admonishment of the perceived ‘failing’ maternal subject. However, despite this scrutiny, the mundane activities of parenting are often impervious to ethnographic forms of inquiry. Challenges for ethnographic researchers include the restrictions of becoming immersed in the private space of the home where parenting occurs, and an institutional structure that discourages exploratory and long-term fieldwork. This paper draws on four studies, involving 34 participants, which explored their journeys into the space of parenthood and their everyday experiences. The studies all employed forms of visual ethnography including artefacts, photo-elicitation, timelines, collage and sandboxing. The paper argues that visual methodologies can enable access to unseen aspects of parenting, and engender forms of temporal extension, which can help researchers to disrupt the restrictions of tightly time bounded projects