Academic mothers and the practice of embodied care: Navigating and resisting uncaring structures in the neoliberal academy

Pecis, Lara and Touboulic, Anne 2024. Academic mothers and the practice of embodied care: Navigating and resisting uncaring structures in the neoliberal academy. Equality, Diversity and Inclusion: An International Journal 43 (5) , pp. 784-803. 10.1108/EDI-07-2022-0194

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Abstract

Purpose: Recent research has captured the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic in widening gender inequalities, by highlighting academic women have been disproportionately affected. During the COVID-19 pandemic, women assumed most of the care labour at home, whilst working usual or even increased patterns, leaving them unable to perform as normal. This is very concerning because of the short and long-term detrimental consequences this will have on women’s well-being and their academic careers. In this article, we aim to stimulate a change in the current understandings of academic work by pointing towards alternative –and more inclusive – ways of working in academia. Design/methodology/approach: The two authors engage with autoethnography and draw on their own personal experience of becoming breastfeeding academic mothers throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. Findings: To understand the positioning of contemporary academic mothers, we draw on insights from both cultural studies and organisation studies on the emergence of discursive formations about gender, i.e., ‘postfeminist sensibility’. Guided by our autoethnographic accounts of academic motherhood, we reveal that today academia creates an individualised, neutral (disembodied), output-focused and control-oriented understanding of academic work. Originality/value: This paper adds to the conversation of academic motherhood and the impact of the pandemic on working mothers. We do so by theoretically contributing with the lens of ‘motherhood’ in grasping what academic work can become. We show the power of motherhood in opening up an alternative way of conceptualising academic work, centred on embodied care, and appreciative of the non-linearity and messiness of life.

Item Type:	Article
Date Type:	Publication
Status:	Published
Schools:	Business (Including Economics)
Subjects:	H Social Sciences > H Social Sciences (General)
Publisher:	Emerald
ISSN:	2040-7149
Date of First Compliant Deposit:	12 December 2023
Date of Acceptance:	6 December 2023
Last Modified:	09 Nov 2024 15:30
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/164551

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