Yolanda's story: An antenarratological approach to understanding mothering work.

Abstract

Mothering work has been studied by social and occupational scientists, as well as a few occupational therapists. However, there remains a lack of in depth qualitative analysis that provides a trajectory view of a mother's experience, particularly after traumatic events involving their children. This study sought to further understand a mothering experience from a mothering work lens following the near-drowning experience of a child in South Florida. Antenarratology is a relatively new approach for analyzing qualitative data. It provides a way to understand the complexities of phenomena over a period of time from a more contextual approach. This method was used to analyze a mother's blog post injury of her child. This report introduces the method and its application to one mother's experience using a case study format. Analysis of data using antenarratology methodology revealed a variety of disparate, inconsistent and common threads, which is acceptable in antenarratological explorations. This more appropriately mirrors the variations of life that a mother's work experiences in child care work entail, particularly post injury.