Troubling Motherhood

<p>In global politics women's bodies are policed objectified surveilled and feared with particular attention paid to both their met or unmet procreative potential. While the significance of motherhood varies across cultures it is as this book argues connected not just to gender and sexuality but also to religion and nationality. Reproduction is central to the flourishing of any nation or culture and therefore motherhood is a major signifier of women's relationship to the state. This is so much the case that states enact laws about which women can bear children and have supported sterilization efforts in cases where women are not deemed appropriate bearers of the nation. States also legislate reproductive technologies adoption and government support for parenting.</p><p>By considering representations and narratives of maternity this volume shows how practices of global politics shape and are shaped by the gendered norms and institutions that underpin motherhood. Motherhood matters in global politics. Yet the diverse ways in which performances and practices of motherhood are constituted by and are constitutive of other dimensions of political life are frequently obscured or assumed to be of little interest to scholars policymakers and practitioners.</p><p>Featuring innovative and diverse chapters on the politics of motherhood as an institution this collection shows that maternality is troubled complicated and heterogeneous in global politics. Thus performances and practices of motherhood warrant closer and more sustained scrutiny. This book builds on work by feminist international relations scholars extending into disruptive spaces of queer theory literary critique and post-colonial studies. The chapters in this book consider the meaning of motherhood particularly during times of war versus peace; the connections between motherhood and nationhood (and reproduction of the state); and care work and maternal labor particularly as performed by transnational workers. Ultimately this book demonstrates the complex interconnections between the individual the state and the global through the lens of maternality.</p>