Versions of Milk and Versions of Care: The Emergence of Mother's Milk as an Interested Object and Medicine as a Form of Dispassionate Care

Abstract

ArgumentAt the turn of the twentieth century the Norwegian market flourished with milk products intended for infants. But medical doctors argued in favor of “going back to nature”: Women ought to breastfeed their children. This paper explores how a re-naturalization of mother's milk emerged within experimental medicine. The prescribed “natural way” did not develop within medicine alone. The paper demonstrates how the natural developed within a relational space of different versions of milk: the free-market milk, the dirty and decaying milk, and the non-nutritional milk. But why did Norwegian mothers, in contrast to the development in for instance the US, continue to breastfeed their infants? Drawing on the work of the leading pediatrician Theodor Frølich, the paper suggests that this may in part be explained by the development of a distinct version of care: A matter-of-fact, pragmatic and flexible version of care that nevertheless came to enact mother's milk as the supreme form of nutrition to which there was hardly a competing or healthy alternative. “The natural way” became a thought style and was made integral to everyday culture.

Den offentliga ohälsan : En historisk studie av barnpsykologi och -psykiatri i svensk media 1968-2008

“…Sedan kan det förekomma svårigheter att helt lyckas kategorisera, mäta eller förklara den men dess koherens över tid och rum är mer eller mindre givet på förhand. Vad jag, med stöd i de empiriska studier som avhandlingen omfattar och det teoretiska ramverket, i stället vill argumentera för är att det inte går att förstå detta fenomen utanför de olika nätverk, beståendes av bland annat barnpsy-experter och -professionella, som deltar i iscensättandet av olika "versioner" (Asdal, 2014) av barns och ungas psykiska ohälsa.…”

“…Att en sådan framställning av experter och expertis varken är helt rättvisande eller särskilt analytiskt produktiv har inte bara lyfts i den psy-historiska litteraturen utan även i medicinhistoriska och -etnografiska studier (e.g Asdal, 2014;Mol, 2002;Rose, 2007)…”

Caring for Corporate Sustainability

“…Tinkering can also include concrete advice or norms and the trials and errors to include them in our daily life (Asdal 2014). In my study, I analyse tinkering in situations when different matters of care clash, such as when a standard urges the employees to work with issues that they do not find important.…”

“Interested Methods” and “Versions of Pragmatism”

“…This does not imply that we must be passionate (cf. Latour and Lépinay 2009) or taken over by interest: you can be dispassionate but interested nevertheless (Asdal 2014). Hence, there are different versions of being interested.…”