Geographical coverage: Canada
Reading Fee: none
Accepts (genre): papers
Prize/Payment: undisclosed
Contact: aoreilly@yorku.ca
International Conference on Motherhood Activism, Advocacy, Agency
May 13-15, 2011 Toronto, Ontario
Grounded in a long history, in which women activists, writers, and feminists focused much effort on strengthening the social, personal, and political power of mothers, current motherhood research and activism makes maternal empowerment one of the major goals of its work. Contemporary examinations and deployments of women's power as mothers—and mothers? power as women—seek to grant women greater authority, resources, and status so that they can adequately care for their children while living full and purposeful lives. The aim of this conference is to explore activism, advocacy, and agency by and on behalf of mothers from a variety of perspectives and in a multitude of contexts. These include (but are not limited to): the motherhood movement, community activism and engagement, politics, law, public policy, education, mental and physical health, maternal practice, family, workplace, personal identity, cultural expression, arts, the media and popular culture. We are particularly interested in presenters whose work examines ways in which issues of race, class, nationality, sexuality, age, religion, or ethnicity affect (positively or negatively) the ability of mothers to advocate for and/or achieve authority, agency, respect, and empowerment.
Topics include but not limited to: the relationship between maternal agency and institutional constraints; personal agency; social agency; intersectionality and maternal agency; maternal agency and social justice; empowerment and family-life responsibilities; maternal agency and legal norms/practices; public policy and the public/private split; neoliberalism and public policy for mothers; healthism and maternal agency; navigating cultural expressions of “good” and “bad” mothering; second and third shift responsibility and agency; online advocacy and empowered mothering; maternal advocacy as theorized or practiced by women of a particular race, class, religion, or culture; empowered caregiving versus non-empowered caregiving; workplace norms and maternal advocacy or agency; motherhood and politics; “having it all” and maternal empowerment; challenging the maternal wall; challenging the “price of motherhood”; pregnancy and maternal agency; empowered
mothering and disability; co-parenting and maternal empowerment; social change potential of memoir, narrative, autobiography, or blogging; maternal empowerment through artistic expression, film, music, literature, pop culture, or
other arts; maternal agency through „experts? or resistance to them; maternal empowerment by being resistant to or rooted in traditions, histories, or generational knowledges; navigating multiple identities as a mother; motherhood movements; advocacy for new family forms and relations; feminist mothering; queer and/or transgendered mothering; gender equity in home and work place; redefining fathering; othermothering; activism by young and/or low-income mothers; maternal
activists? allies.
Please send 250 word abstract and 50 word bio to aoreilly@yorku.ca by October 1, 2010. One must be a 2011 member of MIRCI to present at this conference.
Motherhood Initiative for Research and Community Involvement (MIRCI)
140 Holland St. West, PO Box 13022
Bradford, ON, L3Z 2Y5 (tel) 905-775-5215
www.motherhoodinitiative.org info@motherhoodinitiative.org
More information here.
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