Motherhoods, Markets and Consumption

Stephanie O'Donohoe is Professor of Advertising and Consumer Culture at the University of Edinburgh, UK

This edited collection brings together a range of international studies to explore the role of markets and consumption in the making of mothers. Combining personal accounts from many mothers with different theoretical perspectives, this book examines how marketing and consumer culture constructs particular images of what mothers are, what they should care about and how they should behave.

1. The Making of Mothers Part I: Motherhood as an Ideological, Mediated Project 2. Motherhood in the Movies, 1942-2010: Social Class Mobility and Economic Power 3. Designing Mothers and the Market: Social Class and Material Culture 4. How to be a Mother: Expert Advice and the Material Subject 5. Negotiations of Motherhood: Between Ideals and Practice Part II: Feeding Motherhood 6. "It won't do her any Harm" they said, "Or they wouldn't put it on the Market": Infant Weaning, Markets and Mothers' Narratives of Trust 7. Contesting Food: Contesting Mothering? 8. Food, Cooking and Motherhood amongst Bosnian Refugees in Sweden 9. Images of Motherhood: Food Advertising in Good Housekeeping Magazine, 1950-2010 Part III: Motherhood, Consumption and Transitions 10. Bouncing Back: Reclaiming the Body from Pregnancy 11. Managing Pregnancy Work: Consumption, Emotion and Embeddedness 12. Engaging with the Maternal: Tentative Mothering Acts and the Props of Performance 13. Mothers and their Empty Nests: Employing Consumption Practices to Negotiate a Major Life Transition 14. Whose Work is it Anyway?: The Shifting Dynamics of Accountability and Responsibility in Family Mealtime Practices Part IV: Consumption and Contested Motherhood Identities 15. Mothering, Poverty and Consumption 16. On Markets and Motherhood: The Case of American Mothers of Children Adopted from China 17. Spectacular Pregnancy Loss: The Public Private Lives of the Santorums and Duggars at the Intersection of Politics, Religion and Tabloid Culture 18. Pregnancy, Privacy and Personhood in the Consumer Socialization of Expectant Mothers