Conforming to and resisting imposed identities – an autoethnography on academic motherhood

Abstract

PurposeThis research attempts to make sense of the experiences of two academic women who become mothers.Design/methodology/approachThis paper is an autoethnography. Applying the autoethnographic method allows us to discuss cultural phenomena through personal reflections and experiences. Our autoethnographic reflections illustrate our struggles and attempts of resistance within discursive spaces where motherhood and our identity as academics intersect.FindingsOur personal experiences combined with theoretical elaborations illuminate how the role of the mother continues to be dominated by such gendered discursive practices that conflict with the work role. Once women become mothers, they are othered through societal and organizational practices because they constitute a visible deviation from the masculine norm in the organizational setting, academia included.Originality/valueThis paper explores how contemporary motherhood discourse(s)within academia and the wider society present competing truth claims, embedded in neoliberal and postfeminist cultural sensibility. Our autoethnographic reflections show our struggles and attempts of resistance within such discursive spaces.

Creating good knowledge together: heartful-communal storytelling at the intersection of caregiving and academia

“…In sharing our stories, disclosing details perhaps not even known to our friends and family, we began to contest institutional hegemony (Prasad, 2016), to identify and deconstruct the norms we saw governing the role of Ph.D. students and to which we had been socialized. We realized that it is hard to unveil these truths in academia, since we are people who are supposed to have it all figured out; we elected to be in our positions, so anxiety or stress is considered self-induced (Krysa and Kivij€ arvi, 2022). We noted how we are trained to ignore the need for care in professional life, despite how essential it is to our human experience, yet we found that sharing stories of perceived "weakness" and uncertainty and allowing others to care for us was empowering.…”

“…A significant moment for our methodological exploration of writing differently was when we first read each other's work and began to see the influence of neoliberal forces not only on the experiences we had but also on the way we wrote about and made sense of them (Krysa and Kivij€ arvi, 2022). Our first drafts were constrained, struggling within frames presumed by academia and society (and ourselves) about the roles we were occupying.…”

Guest editorial: Motherhood, work and the politics of care

“…We were connected by an experience so profound, and yet, we found ourselves being enthralled by the cultural nuances of our experiences. Our lines of questioning drove some of us to write and publish papers on motherhood discussing the societal and organizational othering practices women experience as they become mothers (Krysa and Kivijärvi, 2022), the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on working mothers in organizations (Paludi et al ., 2023) and the overlooked economic value of motherhood, which pushes mothers away from economic discourses on development, production and recovery (Jamjoom, 2022). We wanted to hear more stories, and so we embarked on this journey of inviting other mothers and scholars examining these themes to describe experiences of motherhood at the intersection of work, care and socio-cultural context.…”