IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/gender/v27y2020i6p1485-1500.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

A Southern encounter: Maternal body work and low‐income mothers in South Africa

Author

Listed:
  • Bianca Stumbitz
  • Ameeta Jaga

Abstract

This article explores the maternal body work practices of black low‐income mothers from resource‐poor urban spaces in South Africa. Using Southern Theory to open our analytical lens, we recognize that location has implications for how we understand the embodiment of gender and the lactating body in the global South. We argue that maternal body work, as one form of gendered embodiment, must be understood in a postcolonial landscape where histories of colonization and indigenous gender orders continue to shape how women respond to work conditions and how they manage the competing demands of work and breastfeeding. Our analysis from 51 in‐depth interviews conducted in Cape Town, demonstrates that maternal body work practices are interpreted through the entanglement of embodiment and work and non‐work spaces. By emphasizing contextual specificities relating to low‐income workers' living, working and family realities, we advance studies on maternal body work and employment from the global South.

Suggested Citation

  • Bianca Stumbitz & Ameeta Jaga, 2020. "A Southern encounter: Maternal body work and low‐income mothers in South Africa," Gender, Work and Organization, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 27(6), pages 1485-1500, November.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:gender:v:27:y:2020:i:6:p:1485-1500
    DOI: 10.1111/gwao.12527
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/gwao.12527
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/gwao.12527?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Nanna Mik†Meyer & Anne Roelsgaard Obling & Carol Wolkowitz, 2018. "Bodies and Intimate Relations in Organizations and Work," Gender, Work and Organization, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 25(1), pages 1-8, January.
    2. Robyn Lee, 2018. "Breastfeeding Bodies: Intimacies at Work," Gender, Work and Organization, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 25(1), pages 77-90, January.
    3. Rachel Lara Cohen & Carol Wolkowitz, 2018. "The Feminization of Body Work," Gender, Work and Organization, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 25(1), pages 42-62, January.
    4. Raewyn Connell, 2019. "New maps of struggle for gender justice: Rethinking feminist research on organizations and work," Gender, Work and Organization, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 26(1), pages 54-63, January.
    5. Stumbitz, Bianca & Lewis, Suzan & Kyei, Abigail A. & Lyon, Fergus, 2018. "Maternity protection in formal and informal economy workplaces: The case of Ghana," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 110(C), pages 373-384.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Eloisio Moulin de Souza, 2022. "Can Mothers Be Heroes? Maternity and Maternal Body Work in Military Firefighters," RAC - Revista de Administração Contemporânea (Journal of Contemporary Administration), ANPAD - Associação Nacional de Pós-Graduação e Pesquisa em Administração, vol. 26(sup2022), pages 210193-2101.
    2. Caroline Gatrell & Jamie J. Ladge & Gary N. Powell, 2024. "Profane Pregnant Bodies Versus Sacred Organizational Systems: Exploring Pregnancy Discrimination at Work (R2)," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 192(3), pages 527-542, July.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Mohammed Cheded & Alexandros Skandalis, 2021. "Touch and contact during COVID‐19: Insights from queer digital spaces," Gender, Work and Organization, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 28(S2), pages 340-347, July.
    2. Ayesha Masood & Muhammad Azfar Nisar, 2020. "Crushed between two stones: Competing institutional logics in the implementation of maternity leave policies in Pakistan," Gender, Work and Organization, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 27(6), pages 1103-1126, November.
    3. Denise L. Spitzer, 2022. "Working intimacies: Migrant beer sellers, surveillance, and intimate labor in Cambodia, Laos, and Thailand," Gender, Work and Organization, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 29(3), pages 906-921, May.
    4. Laurence Romani & Patrizia Zanoni & Lotte Holck, 2021. "Radicalizing diversity (research): Time to resume talking about class," Gender, Work and Organization, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 28(1), pages 8-23, January.
    5. Vijayta Doshi, 2021. "Symbolic violence in embodying customer service work across the urban/rural divide," Gender, Work and Organization, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 28(1), pages 39-53, January.
    6. M. Winter, 2023. "Carrie's first academic conference—On the possibilities of feminist storytelling and fiction in management," Gender, Work and Organization, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 30(6), pages 2119-2129, November.
    7. Owain Smolović Jones & Sanela Smolović Jones & Scott Taylor & Emily Yarrow, 2022. "Theorizing gender desegregation as political work: The case of the Welsh Labour Party," Gender, Work and Organization, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 29(6), pages 1747-1763, November.
    8. Ernestine Gheyoh Ndzi & Amy Holmes, 2023. "Paternal Leave Entitlement and Workplace Culture: A Key Challenge to Paternal Mental Health," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 20(8), pages 1-13, April.
    9. Jing Zhang & Simon Appleton & Lina Song & Bing Liu, 2021. "Who Looks after the Kids? The Effects of Childcare Choice on Early Childhood Development in China," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 83(3), pages 619-640, June.
    10. Carol Atkinson & Fiona Carmichael & Jo Duberley, 2021. "The Menopause Taboo at Work: Examining Women’s Embodied Experiences of Menopause in the UK Police Service," Work, Employment & Society, British Sociological Association, vol. 35(4), pages 657-676, August.
    11. Anna Galazka & Joe O’Mahoney, 2023. "The Socio-Materiality of Dirty Work: A Critical Realist Perspective," Work, Employment & Society, British Sociological Association, vol. 37(2), pages 432-448, April.
    12. Ruth Weatherall, 2020. "Even when those struggles are not our own: Storytelling and solidarity in a feminist social justice organization," Gender, Work and Organization, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 27(4), pages 471-486, July.
    13. Emma Banister & Ben Kerrane, 2024. "Glimpses of change? UK fathers navigating work and care within the context of Shared Parental Leave," Gender, Work and Organization, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 31(4), pages 1214-1229, July.
    14. Anna Maaranen & Janne Tienari, 2020. "Social media and hyper‐masculine work cultures," Gender, Work and Organization, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 27(6), pages 1127-1144, November.
    15. Rachel Lara Cohen, 2020. "‘We’re not like that’: Crusader and Maverick Occupational Identity Resistance," Sociological Research Online, , vol. 25(1), pages 136-153, March.
    16. Ashlee Borgkvist & Vivienne Moore & Shona Crabb & Jaklin Eliott, 2021. "Critical considerations of workplace flexibility “for all” and gendered outcomes: Men being flexible about their flexibility," Gender, Work and Organization, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 28(6), pages 2076-2090, November.
    17. Keonhi Son & Tobias Böger, 2021. "The Inclusiveness of Maternity Leave Rights over 120 Years and across Five Continents," Social Inclusion, Cogitatio Press, vol. 9(2), pages 275-287.
    18. Elaine Burns & Susanne Gannon & Heather Pierce & Sky Hugman, 2022. "Corporeal generosity: Breastfeeding bodies and female‐dominated workplaces," Gender, Work and Organization, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 29(3), pages 778-799, May.
    19. Eunjung Koo, 2021. "A Pluralistic insight on care value: Exuding from sharing gift of unpaid work at home," Gender, Work and Organization, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 28(4), pages 1413-1425, July.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bla:gender:v:27:y:2020:i:6:p:1485-1500. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/journal.asp?ref=0968-6673 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.