Reconfiguring the breastfeeding body in urban public spaces

Abstract

The breastfeeding body is subject to overt and subversive forms of regulation and control in contemporary society, where it is sexualized and naturalized, rendered both visible and invisible, revered and found disruptive. Despite health policy espousing the benefits of breastfeeding for mother and child, duration rates in Canada remain relatively low. In this paper, I explore the spatial practices of the breastfeeding body in public, using feminist work on the body and theorizations of built form, urban space and embodied practice. Drawing on a series of feminist autoethnographic vignettes, I write my breastfeeding body into a diversity of routine urban spaces-a car, grocery store, mall, bookstore, highway, alleyway-and narrate my experiences negotiating social responses and spatial arrangements. I argue that the breastfeeding body challenges normative understandings of gender, motherhood and sexuality through its participation and presence in public space. The breastfeeding body transgresses the meaning of space and the performance of identity as it claims space for private use. Réaménager le corps qui allaite au sein dans les lieux publics urbains RÉSUMÉ Le corps qui allaite fait l'objet de formes évidentes et subversives de régulation et de contrôle dans notre société contemporaine où il est sexualisé et naturalisé, rendu à la fois visible et invisible, révéré et considéré comme dérangeant. Malgré la politique de santé qui s'aligne sur les avantages de l'allaitement au sein pour la mère et l'enfant, les taux de durée au Canada restent relativement bas. Dans cet article, j'explore les pratiques spatiales du corps qui allaite en public, en utilisant la recherche féministe sur le corps et les théorisations de la forme construite, de l'espace urbain et de la pratique incarnée. En m'appuyant sur une série de vignettes auto-ethnographiques féministes, j'inscris mon corps qui allaite dans une diversité d'espaces urbains routiniers-une voiture, un magasin d'alimentation, un centre commercial, une librairie, une autoroute, une allée-et je raconte mes expériences de négociations de réponses sociales et d'aménagements spatiaux. Je soutiens que le corps qui allaite met au défi les vues normatives du genre, de la maternité et de la sexualité à travers sa participation et présence dans l'espace public. Le corps qui allaite transgresse la signification de l'espace et la performance de l'identité en revendiquant l'espace dans un objectif privé.

The understated turn: Emerging interests and themes in Canadian posthumanist geography

“…The stories Cameron speaks of come from the bodies and autoethnographic experiences of particular authors: namely white, male, British academics; she warns that “we must be careful about where we direct our attention and what stories we come to be touched by” (Cameron 2012, 585). In a critical and reflexive vein, Mathews (2018) writes an intimate feminist embodied autoethnography of her affective experiences with breastfeeding in public spaces in Saskatchewan. Her work acknowledges her relatively privileged positionality and the location of knowledge produced, whilst providing “alternative sites and surfaces for theorizing the body as flesh and fluid in public space” (Mathews 2018, 15).…”

“…It is simultaneously an epoch, epistemological style, and an ontological condition (Ginn 2017). Within Canadian geography, posthumanist analyses have drawn on varied sub‐disciplines, theories, and philosophical underpinnings including Indigenous knowledges (Sundberg 2014; Hoogeveen 2016; Yates et al 2017; Vannini and Vannini 2019); feminist performativity theory (Geiger and Hovorka 2015; Mathews 2018); (neo)vitalism philosophies (Ruddick 2010); non‐/more‐than‐representational theories (Hall and Wilton 2016; Andrews 2018b; Vannini and Vannini 2018); Foucauldian analyses of governmentality theory on biopolitics and biopower (e.g., Blue and Rock 2011; Collard 2012); queer theory (e.g., Nash and Gorman‐Murray 2017); and assemblage and actor‐network theories (e.g., Lepawsky and Mather 2011; Andrews 2018a; Evans et al 2019). Moreover, “rhizomatic networks” of posthuman theoretical knowledge in Canadian geography have been cultivated in and around various institutions.…”

Breastfeeding, ‘tainted’ love, and femmephobia: containing the ‘dirty’ performances of embodied femininity

“…Clearly, women negotiate gendered expectations by breastfeeding (Mathews, 2018). They simultaneously perform patriarchal femininity (by engaging with the expression of motherhood), gender trouble (by breastfeeding in public, for an 'extended' time, or by enjoying it), and femme (by refusing the masculine right of access infused in notions of patriarchal femininity).…”

“…As such, women who breastfeed in public, who do so for an 'extended' time, 1 and who enjoy it are stigmatised (e.g. K. Boyer, 2018;Dowling & Brown, 2013;Grant, 2016;Grant et al, 2017;Mathews, 2018;Newman & Williamson, 2018;Tăut, 2017;Tomori et al, 2016). Indeed, KLM's 2019 tweet presents breastfeeding as an activity that makes some people feel 'uncomfortable' and alludes to the possible 'offence' that might be caused:…”

The body as a site of care: food and lactating bodies in the U.S.

“…Although the body is a space, place, and scale that is a core component of scholarly work in geography, very few geographers focus on nursing or human milk as an explicit part of their research (as exception, see Boyer 2018;Lane 2014;Mathews 2019). Yet these are spatial conversations-where people feed their infants (public versus private is a long-standing issue), where the parenting body fits both as a space and within spaces (determining which bodies are coded as in-or out-of-place is a common theme), and the care work undertaken by lactating bodies (emphasis on care work is increasing).…”