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Recognition and Justice? Conceptualizing Support for Women Whose Children Are in Care or Adopted

Author

Listed:
  • Janet Boddy

    (Centre for Innovation and Research in Childhood and Youth, University of Sussex, Brighton BN1 9QQ, UK)

  • Bella Wheeler

    (Regent’s College London, London W1W 5BD, UK)

Abstract

This paper examines the views of mothers who have experienced (or are judged to be at risk of) recurrent removal of children into care or adoption. Drawing on their accounts of working with an intensive 18 month support program called Pause, we argue for the relevance of conceptualizing policy and practice with reference to Honneth’s theory of recognition and Fraser’s arguments about the need to address misrecognition through redistribution, attending to gendered political and economic injustice. The analysis draws on qualitative longitudinal interviews with 49 women, conducted as part of a national UK Department for Education (DfE)-funded evaluation of Pause. Each woman was interviewed up to four times over a period of up to 20 months, both during and after the Pause intervention. Case-based longitudinal analysis illuminates how stigma can obscure women’s rights and needs—including welfare entitlements and health, as well as rights to family life—and shows how support can act to enable both redistribution, advocating to ensure women’s rights in a context of diminishing public welfare, and recognition, challenging stigmatization through recognition of women’s motherhood, and of their rights to care, solidarity, respect and fun.

Suggested Citation

  • Janet Boddy & Bella Wheeler, 2020. "Recognition and Justice? Conceptualizing Support for Women Whose Children Are in Care or Adopted," Societies, MDPI, vol. 10(4), pages 1-21, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jsoctx:v:10:y:2020:i:4:p:96-:d:455027
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Bilson, Andy & Bywaters, Paul, 2020. "Born into care: Evidence of a failed state," Children and Youth Services Review, Elsevier, vol. 116(C).
    2. Pamela Cox & Susan McPherson & Claire Mason & Mary Ryan & Vanessa Baxter, 2020. "Reducing Recurrent Care Proceedings: Building a Local Evidence Base in England," Societies, MDPI, vol. 10(4), pages 1-16, November.
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