A special issue of Ethos – Journal of the Society for Psychological Anthropology has just been published, featuring the dossier “Contested Parenting: Experts, Audiences, Selves,” organized by Heike Drotbohm and Konstanze N’Guessan. The dossier stems from a seminar on the politics of “good parenting” held at the University of Mainz, Germany, in 2022.
The dossier explores the topic of parenting through the interaction of three groups of actors: (1) the parents themselves, who navigate their own imaginings of parenthood while facing expectations and role assignments based on “ideal types” of persons; (2) the experts — both professionals and self-proclaimed — who hold central authority in observing, commenting on, and, if necessary, intervening in parenting practices; (3) the audiences, including not only (other) parents and experts, but also in-laws, neighbors, children, and any other observing member of an imagined community who seemingly watches and judges whether parenting is being done properly, well, and appropriately.
The collection features articles based on empirical research from different regions of the world, reflecting on gender, race, and class inequalities that shape parenting interventions, public policy goals, and the moral and emotional dimensions of parents’ identity work.
In addition to the introduction by organizers Heike Drotbohm and Konstanze N’Guessan, the special issue includes the following articles: “What Exactly Is a Family Man? Performing and Precluding Respectable Fatherhood in Dominica,” by Adom Philogene Heron; “Making beautiful babies: Performative parenting, parental determinism, and personhood in Côte d’Ivoire,” by Konstanze N’Guessan; “Motherhood amidst reprimands and advice: Parenting and class in Rio de Janeiro,” by Laura Lowenkron and Camila Fernandes; “Contesting parenting expertise: Constructing good mothering and searching for dignity in Cameroonian Berlin,” by Pamela Feldman-Savelsberg; “Aid workers parenting in the field: Children-as-audience and the generational transmission of privilege in Senegal,” by Dinah Hannaford; “Help can harm. Unintended consequences of child protection and parenting support for Vietnamese immigrant families in Germany,” by Nga Thi Thanh Mai and Gabriel Scheidecker; “Disrupting the social by centering the self: Life coaching and the politics of marriage, motherhood, and adult sociability among Latinx and Latin American women,” by Ana Ramos-Zayas; and “Contested parenting and affective economies. A commentary,” by Claudia Fonseca.
The article by professors Laura Lowenkron (CLAM/IMS/UERJ and REMA) and Camila Fernandes (CLAM/IMS/UERJ and REMA), titled “Motherhood amidst reprimands and advice: Parenting and class in Rio de Janeiro,” addresses inequalities in how motherhood is moralized in contemporary Brazil. The analysis focuses on two modes of communication — reprimands and expert advice — directed at mothers in two distinct social contexts in the city of Rio de Janeiro. Based on Camila Fernandes’s fieldwork in a favela complex, the first case study examines how poor and racialized women are scolded by professionals at public daycare centers. Drawing from Laura Lowenkron’s ethnographic research in a middle-class parents’ WhatsApp group, the second case focuses on parenting advice circulated in the group during the Covid-19 pandemic. By comparing reprimands and advice, the authors suggest that speech acts reveal how expert discourse carries out forms of moralization that not only shape motherhood experiences but also differentiate them according to class, race, and territory.
Access the full dossier.