The Ethics and Politics of Breastfeeding: Power, Pleasure, Poetics
© 2018
Responding to the most widely read breastfeeding manual, La Leche League’s The Womanly Art of Breastfeeding, Robyn Lee’s The Ethics and Politics of Breastfeeding explores breastfeeding as an art that must be developed through skillful application of effort and distinguished from a merely natural or physiological process.
The Ethics and Politics of Breastfeeding challenges the dominant understanding of breastfeeding and cultivates an alternative conception as an ethical, embodied practice of the self. Drawing on the work of Michel Foucault, Emmanuel Levinas, and Luce Irigaray, Lee develops a new understanding of breastfeeding as an "art of living," where the practice is reconsidered in the light of ongoing social inequalities.
Product Details
- World Rights
- Page Count: 256 pages
- Dimensions: 5.9in x 1.2in x 9.2in
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Reviews
"The Ethics and Politics of Breastfeeding takes a scholarly approach to the topic of breastfeeding by drawing on the respective works of Foucault, Levinas, and Irigaray. In doing so, Robyn Lee critiques prevailing discourses to provide a thought-provoking and timely discussion surrounding cultural politics."
Rhonda M. Shaw, School of Social and Cultural Studies, Victoria University of Wellington"Robyn Lee is very well acquainted with writings on contemporary breastfeeding practices and policy. A significant contribution of this book is that she brings together a vast range of materials in a skilled and artful analysis that raises important questions for breastfeeding scholars."
Cindy Stearns, Department of Sociology, Sonoma State University -
Author Information
Robyn Lee is an assistant professor in the Department of Sociology at the University of Alberta. -
Table of contents
1. Breastfeeding, Subjectivity, and Art as a Way of Life
2. Biopower, Medicalization, and Maternalism
3. Ethics, Pleasure, Subjectivity
4. Feeding the Hungry Other
5. Breastfeeding and Sexual Difference
6. A Politics of Breastfeeding
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Subjects and Courses
