A1 Refereed original research article in a scientific journal

‘Writing’ aesth-ethics on the child's body: Developing maternal subjectivities through clothing our children




AuthorsAstrid Huopalainen, Suvi Satama

PublisherWiley

Publication year2019

JournalGender, Work and Organization

Volume27

Issue1

First page 98

Last page116

Number of pages19

ISSN0968-6673

DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1111/gwao.12404(external)

Web address https://onlinelibrary-wiley-com.ezproxy.utu.fi/doi/epdf/10.1111/gwao.12404(external)


Abstract

What could we learn from the‘aesth-ethic’practices ofclothing children? The dual focus of this article is to analysethe everyday clothing of children as well as the develop-ment of maternal subjectivities as relevant to discussions ofaesthetic labour in the field of organization studies. Drawingupon the literatures on aesthetic labour and maternal sub-jectivities in the field of organization studies, we develop afine-grained understanding of the relatively intense andeffortful maternal labours that clothing our children encap-sulates. Methodologically, we use autoethnographic diarynotes combined with feminist‘memory work’to analyseclothing as an affectual form of storytelling or‘writing’onthe child's body that (re)produces certain socioculturalunderstandings about mothering, sustainability andchildhood(s) in a Nordic context embraced by western con-sumerism. By considering the limitations of the approachtaken to drawing wider conclusions about motherhoods,identity construction and clothing, this article advances ourunderstanding of the development ofparticularmiddle-classmaternal subjectivities seeking to problematize mass con-sumerism through childrenswear, and how idea(l)s con-cerning gender and childhood(s) are being (re)produced inand through clothing.



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