Sharing Milk: Mothering, Work, and Emotional Materiality
Shannon Carter and Beatriz Reyes-Foster
Abstract
The feeding of human milk to socially and biologically unrelated infants is not a new phenomenon, but the Euroamerican values of individualism have generated expectations that mothers are individually responsible for feeding their own infants. Using a bio-communities of practice framework, this dynamic new analysis explores the emotional and material dimensions of the growing milk-sharing practice in the Global North and its implications for contemporary understandings of infant feeding in the United States. Ranging widely across themes of motherhood, gender and sociology, this is a compelling ... More
The feeding of human milk to socially and biologically unrelated infants is not a new phenomenon, but the Euroamerican values of individualism have generated expectations that mothers are individually responsible for feeding their own infants. Using a bio-communities of practice framework, this dynamic new analysis explores the emotional and material dimensions of the growing milk-sharing practice in the Global North and its implications for contemporary understandings of infant feeding in the United States. Ranging widely across themes of motherhood, gender and sociology, this is a compelling empirical account of infant feeding that stimulates new thinking about a contentious practice.
Keywords:
human milk,
infants,
infant feeding,
individualism,
milk-sharing,
Global North,
motherhood,
gender
Bibliographic Information
Print publication date: 2020 |
Print ISBN-13: 9781529202083 |
Published to Policy Press Scholarship Online: May 2021 |
DOI:10.1332/policypress/9781529202083.001.0001 |
Authors
Affiliations are at time of print publication.
Shannon Carter, author
University of Central Florida
Beatriz Reyes-Foster, author
University of Central Florida
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