Biyoiktidar, Beslenme ve Annelik: Emzirmenin Kültürel ve Politik Görünümleri

Abstract

This study aims to discuss how motherhood, infant nutrition, and the female body have become open to various regulations and discourses using the case of breastfeeding as the basis for reinforcing socio-political processes and ensuring the continuity of the patriarchal system. Today, nutrition and the body have become the focus of socio-political processes and discourses on these subjects with effects on the developments in natural diet, ecological life, and technological and medical knowledge. In this context, while infant nutrition with healthy and additive-free features on one hand has become important again, on the other hand it has been drawn into the center of new market and consumption processes by emphasizing these features and has been commercialized and commoditized within market relations. In this way, motherhood is being constructed normatively, and the female body has become open to supervision through discussions about breastfeeding, breast milk, and infant formula usage. From this point of view, the study will discuss issues regarding motherhood, breastfeeding, and infant nutrition in terms of the micropower relations that have control over the body as well as the concepts of biopolitics and medicalization. In this regard, the study’s main argument is that the processes concerning motherhood have been morally disciplined and constructed through the biopolitical, cultural, and medical discourses generated about motherhood and infant nutrition, despite transformations in social structures and the struggles of feminist efforts.