Space, Time, and Renegotiating Motherhood: An Exploration of the Domestic Workplace

Abstract

Recent discussion in human geography has heightened awareness of the problems and possibilities of the use of social theory in empirical research, This paper is concerned with showing how insights from feminist theory and Giddens's theory of structuration informed a study focusing on women's mothering practices in a Canadian suburb. In concert these approaches cast attention to the implications of recognizing subjects as knowledgeable human agents in analyses of social and economic change. These include a renewed emphasis on the ‘everyday’ and its links with general processes, an interest in methods appropriate for investigating the generation of meanings central to our social and spatial worlds, and the need to incorporate women's experiences in the construction of theoretical knowledge. Included in a new research agenda within feminist geography are questions concerning the active construction of gender identities through practices which vary over time and space. In the study reported the meaning of the domestic workplace to mothers of young children was explored. It is shown how the notion of motherhood and the sets of practices making up mothering work were interpreted and negotiated as women responded to social and economic structuring in a particular place. The paper includes a concluding discussion on the links between the theoretical underpinnings of the study and its empirical findings.