A Renewed Ethic of Embodiment in the Community of Motherhood: On the Intersection of First-Time Maternity and Hermeneutics

Samuels, Sumerlee Eden

A Renewed Ethic of Embodiment in the Community of Motherhood: On the Intersection of First-Time Maternity and Hermeneutics

dc.contributor.advisor	St. George, Sally Ann
dc.contributor.author	Samuels, Sumerlee Eden
dc.contributor.committeemember	Chang, Jeff
dc.contributor.committeemember	Sesma Vazquez, Monica
dc.contributor.committeemember	Shaw, Jessica Corinne Allen
dc.contributor.committeemember	Ilic, Dragana
dc.date	2023-11
dc.date.accessioned	2023-06-02T16:15:17Z
dc.date.available	2023-06-02T16:15:17Z
dc.date.issued	2023-05-25
dc.description.abstract	What does it mean to be a “good” mother? This research focuses on the community of motherhood through the eyes of first-time (FT) mothers and is aimed at addressing the consequences, for newcomers to this community, of how we describe the goodness of a mother’s day-to-day labours. The main researched question is how might we understand embodied maternity and motherhood in a community whose members are always already measured and marked? To respond to this question, I used hermeneutic inquiry guided by Gadamer’s (1975/2004) philosophical hermeneutics. The pool of participants was comprised of 10 FT mothers, aged 29 to 43, who had joined the community of motherhood within the last 2 years. Participants engaged in audio-recorded interviews. Analysis of the data included reading transcripts and field notes, listening to recordings, journaling wonderings inspired by the interviews, reviewing drawings created by FT mothers, and consulting literature. Through this process, I distinguished tensions that are traditionally tough to traverse as a FT mother from which I created three interpretations that reveal how we might understand the notion of embodied maternity and motherhood. These interpretations included the ins and outs of muffled motherhood metrics, covering expectations for good mothers together with exceptions to expectations for good mothers; malleable mothering matters, covering good mothering doing(s) together with bad mothering doing(s); and manifested mothers’ manners, covering conventional mothering being(s) together with unconventional mothering being(s). Following a presentation of these interpretations, I discuss implications of the findings for theory, practice, and research.
dc.identifier.citation	Samuels, S. E. (2023). A renewed ethic of embodiment in the community of motherhood: on the intersection of first-time maternity and hermeneutics (Doctoral thesis, University of Calgary, Calgary, Canada). Retrieved from https://prism.ucalgary.ca.
dc.identifier.uri	https://hdl.handle.net/1880/116588
dc.identifier.uri	https://dx.doi.org/10.11575/PRISM/41431
dc.language.iso	en
dc.publisher.faculty	Werklund School of Education
dc.publisher.institution	University of Calgary
dc.rights	University of Calgary graduate students retain copyright ownership and moral rights for their thesis. You may use this material in any way that is permitted by the Copyright Act or through licensing that has been assigned to the document. For uses that are not allowable under copyright legislation or licensing, you are required to seek permission.
dc.subject	first-time motherhood
dc.subject	good mother
dc.subject	dominant maternal discourse
dc.subject	alternative maternal discourse
dc.subject	embodiment
dc.subject	philosophical hermeneutics
dc.subject	counselling psychology
dc.subject	social construction
dc.subject	community
dc.subject.classification	Psychology
dc.subject.classification	Education--Guidance and Counseling
dc.subject.classification	Education--Health
dc.subject.classification	Mental Health
dc.title	A Renewed Ethic of Embodiment in the Community of Motherhood: On the Intersection of First-Time Maternity and Hermeneutics
dc.type	doctoral thesis
thesis.degree.discipline	Applied Psychology
thesis.degree.grantor	University of Calgary
thesis.degree.name	Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
ucalgary.thesis.accesssetbystudent	I do not require a thesis withhold – my thesis will have open access and can be viewed and downloaded publicly as soon as possible.