Becoming a Mother Through Culture

Abstract

“Culture” is often considered in terms of identifiable artifacts, rules, and practices, with less attention given to how investment in these features comes about. Using data extracts from a case study of a young woman who is becoming a mother for the first time, we pay attention to how people react to cultural processes in terms of how they “feel.” We use our own affective and reflective responses to interviews and observational material about her experiences with feeding her baby within the context of an extended family of Bangladeshi descent in a contemporary East London setting. Drawing on Bakhtin’s concept of “voice” and Bion’s theory of thinking as an emergent phenomenon necessitated by the pressure of emotional experience, we trace how her own wishes became more articulated and were given precedence among the diverse voices of others about how to feed her baby son. We suggest an account of personal agency in which a dynamic, processual subjectivity will draw on as well as transform the web of relationships that a culture has to offer.

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