Theorising mother-baby-assemblages: The vital emergence of maternal health

Neely, Eva

doi:10.1016/j.socscimed.2022.115601

Cited by 3 publications

(2 citation statements)

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“…In this article, we extend existing critiques by tracing research practices in maternal transition articles and plugging into critical posthumanism and feminist/new materialisms to explore what relational ontologies can do for maternal subjectivities. We seek to redress the maternal transition toward mother-baby-assemblages (assemblages where parts are joined together and act on each other to do things; Neely, 2023) that are oriented toward entangled multiplicities of human and nonhuman encounters. Through this shift, we move away from the maternal as defined by noncorporeal autonomy, agency, and freedom, and challenge the privilege afforded to rationality.…”

Section: Research Inquiry On the Maternal Transitionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Beyond voice: An onto-epistemological analysis of maternal transition inquiry

Neely,

Pettie,

Henderson

2023

Feminism & Psychology

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The maternal transition is a key concept for studying first-time motherhood. Whilst qualitative research in this space has contributed much to understanding the psychological and sociocultural shifts in this transition, a broad adoption of conventional humanistic qualitative methodologies has produced linear and rather homogenous knowledges. In this article, we interrogate the onto-epistemological repercussions of such inquiry and cut into this work by plugging into feminist/new materialisms and critical posthumanism. We trace the trail of qualitative maternal transition literature by examining methodologies and methods to think through the limits and potentialities of their knowledge-production capacity. We read across the research practices of 56 maternal transition articles spanning the past 5 decades. We found most reside within a liberal humanist framework, which inevitably positions mothers as rational, agentic, disembodied, and responsible actors. We explore what is in-between, missing, or could be in future becoming-mother research assemblages. Through thinking with feminist/new materialist and critical posthuman theories as inquiry pathways, we open up the maternal transition as a constantly evolving and fluctuating process of becoming-mother. Findings underscore the importance of diversifying theory and methodologies in studying first-time motherhood and paying greater attention to the relations between human and non-human agencies.

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Section: Research Inquiry On the Maternal Transitionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Beyond voice: An onto-epistemological analysis of maternal transition inquiry

Neely,

Pettie,

Henderson

2023

Feminism & Psychology

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“…Positively, values-based health promotion offers a more distributed agency, which means we can think of the maternal transition as comprised of shared responsibility across a range of agencies ( Neely, 2023 ). Becoming a mother then overtly happens in reciprocity with the environment: this demands from us, as a society, that we optimize the conditions across individual, community and policy levels that enable mothering.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Towards a mother-centred maternal health promotion

Neely

Reed

2023

Health Promotion International

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Summary A transformative approach to maternal health promotion should be mother-centred, context-driven and grounded in lived experiences. Health promotion can achieve this by drawing on its disciplinary roots to extend and reorient maternal health promotion towards an approach of non-stigmatizing and equitable health promotion that has mothers’ well-being at the centre, particularly giving credit to marginalized, ‘non-normative’ maternities. This article draws on data from 18 workshops EN conducted across Aotearoa New Zealand, including 268 maternal health stakeholders. Drawing on design thinking, participants reimagined what a maternal health promotion approach informed by the Ottawa Charter action areas could comprise. The five themes included building connected systems close to home, developing mothering/parenting skills, addressing upstream determinants, mother-centred care and funding, and creating a collective mothering village. We discuss how these areas could better meet the unique challenges of transitioning to motherhood. Rather than focussing only on individual behaviours, many ideas reveal broader environmental and structural determinants. We link the themes to current literature and advance the agenda for centring the maternal in maternal health promotion.

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