This paper examines the relationship between the state and the individual in relation to an aspect of mundane family life – the feeding of babies and young children. The nutritional status of children has long been a matter of national concern and infant feeding is an aspect of family life that has been subjected to substantial state intervention. It exemplifies the imposition upon women the ‘biologico-moral responsibility’ for the welfare of children (Foucault, 1991b).
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
AppleR.D., (1994), ‘The medicalization of infant feeding in the United States and New Zealand: two countries, one experience,’Journal of Human Lactation10 (1): 31–37.
2.
AppleR.D., (1995), ‘Constructing mothers: scientific motherhood in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries,’Social History of Medicine8 (2): 161–178.
3.
ArnupK., (1990), ‘Educating mothers: government advice for women in the inter-war years’, in ArnupK.LevesqueA. and Roach PiersonR. (eds), Delivering Motherhood: Maternal Ideologies and Practices in the 19th and 20th Centuries, London: Routledge.
4.
CarterS., (1995), ‘Boundaries of danger and uncertainty: an analysis of the technological culture of risk assessment’, in GabeJ. (ed.), Medicine, Health and Risk, Oxford: Blackwell.
5.
CoreaG., (1985), The Mother Machine: Reproductive Technologies from Artificial Insemination to Artificial Wombs, New York: Harper and Row.
6.
DanaherG.SchiratoT. and WebbJ., (2000), Understanding Foucault, London: Sage.
7.
DeanM., (1999), Governmentality: Power and Rule in Modern Society, London: Sage.
8.
Department of Health, (1994), Weaning and the Weaning Diet. Report of the Working Group on the Weaning Diet of the Committee on Medical Aspects of Food Policy, 45. London, HMSO, Report on Health and Social Subjects, 45.
9.
Department of Health and Social Security, (1974), Present-day Practice in Infant Feeding, London, HMSO, Report on Health and Social Subjects, 9.
10.
Department of Health and Social Security, (1980), Present-day Practice in Infant Feeding, London, HMSO. Report on Health and Social Subjects, 20.
11.
Department of Health and Social Security, (1988), Present-day Practice in Infant Feeding; Third Report, London, HMSO. Report on Health and Social Subjects, 32.
12.
DingwallR., (1977), ‘“Atrocity stories” and professional relationships,’Sociology of Work and Occupations4 (4): 371–396.
13.
EhrenreichB. and EnglishD., (1979), For Her Own Good: 150 Years of Experts' Advice to Women, London: Pluto Press.
14.
FordR.TaylorB. and MitchellE., (1993), ‘Breastfeeding and the risk of sudden infant death syndrome’, International Journal of Epidemiology, 22: 885–890.
15.
FosterF.LaderD. and CheeseboroughS., (1997), Infant Feeding 1995, London: The Stationery Office.
16.
FoucaultM., (1980a), History of Sexuality: Volume One, New York: Vintage Books.
17.
FoucaultM., (1980b), Introduction to Herculin Barbin: Being the Recently Discovered Memoirs of a Nineteenth Century French Hermaphrodite, New York: Pantheon.
18.
FoucaultM., (1984), ‘The ethics of the concern for self as a practice of freedom’, in LotringerS. (ed.) Foucault Live: Collected Interviews 1961–1984, New York: Semiotext(e).
19.
FoucaultM., (1990), History of Sexuality Volume 3: The Care of the Self, London: Penguin.
20.
FoucaultM., (1991a), ‘Governmentality’, in BurchellG.GordonC. and MillerP. (eds), The Foucault Effect: Studies in Govermentality, Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
21.
FoucaultM., (1991b), ‘The Politics of Health in the Eighteenth Century’, in RabinowP. (ed.), The Foucault Reader: An Introduction to Foucault's Thought, London: Penguin.
22.
FoucaultM., (1991c), Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison, London: Penguin.
23.
GlaserB. and StraussA., (1967), The Discovery of Grounded Theory: Strategies for Qualitative Research, New York: Aldine.
24.
GoffmanE., (1959), The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life, Harmondsworth: Penguin.
25.
GordonL., (1977), Woman's Body, Woman's Right: A Social History of Birth Control in America, New York: Penguin.
26.
GrahamH. and OakleyA., (1986), ‘Competing Ideologies of Reproduction: Medical and Maternal Perspectives on Pregnancy’, in RobertsH. (ed.), Women, Health and Reproduction, London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, pp. 50–74.
27.
GrecoM. (1993), ‘Psychomatic subjects and the “duty to be well”: personal agency within medical rationality,’Economy and Society22 (3): 357–372.
28.
HeritageJ. and SefiS. (1992), ‘Dilemmas of advice: aspects of the delivery and reception of advice in interactions between health visitors and first-time mothers’, in DrewP. and HeritageJ. (eds), Talk at Work: Interaction in Institutional Settings, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 359–417.
29.
HowieP.J.ForsythJ.OgstenS.ClarkeA. and FloreyC., (1990), ‘Protective effect of breast feeding against infection’, British Medical Journal, 300: 11–16.
30.
Katz RothmanB., (1982), In Labour: Women and Power in the Birthplace, London: Junction Books.
31.
KitzingerS., (1992), ‘Birth and Violence against Women: Generating Hypotheses from Women's Accounts of Unhappiness after Childbirth’, in RobertsH. (ed.), Women's Health Matters, London: Routledge, pp. 63–80.
32.
LawlerS., (1999), ‘Children need but mothers only want: the power of “needs talk” in the constitution of childhood’, in SeymourJ. and BagguleyP. (eds), Relating Intimacies: Power and Resistance, pp. 64–88.
33.
LawlerS., (2000), Mothering the Self: Mothers, Daughters, Subjects, London: Routledge.
34.
LawrenceR., (1995), ‘The clinician's role in teaching proper infant feeding techniques’, The Journal of Pediatrics126: S112–S117.
35.
LuptonD., (1993), ‘Risk as moral danger: the social and political functions of risk discourse in public health,’The International Journal of Health Services23 (3): 425–435.
36.
LuptonD., (1995), The Imperative of Health, London: Sage.
37.
LuptonD., (1997), ‘Foucault and the Medicalisation Critique’, in PetersenA. and BuntonR. (eds), Foucault, Health and Medicine, London: Routledge.
38.
MayallB. and FosterM.-C., (1989), Child Health Care, Oxford: Heinemann Nursing.
39.
McIntoshJ., (1986), A Consumer Perspective on the Health Visiting Service, University of Glasgow: Social, Paediatric and Obstetrics Research Unit.
40.
McNayL., (1992), Foucault and Feminism: Power, Gender and the Self, Cambridge: Polity Press.
41.
McNayL., (1994), Foucault: A Critical Introduction, Cambridge: Polity Press.
42.
MorganD., (1985), The Family, Politics and Social Theory, London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.
43.
MurphyE.A., (1999), ‘Breast is best: infant feeding and maternal deviance’, Sociology of Health and Illness21 (2): 187–208.
44.
MurphyE.A., (2000). ‘Risk, responsibility and rhetoric in infant feeding,’Journal of Contemporary Ethnography29 (3): 291–325.
45.
MurphyE.A.ParkerS. and PhippsC., (1998a), ‘Competing agendas in infant feeding’, British Food Journal, 100 (3): 128–132.
46.
MurphyE.A.ParkerS. and PhippsC., (1998b), ‘Food choices for babies’ in MurcottA. (ed.), The Nation's Diet, London: Longman pp. 250–266.
47.
MurphyE.AParkerS. and PhippsC., (1999), ‘Motherhood, morality, and infant feeding’, in WilliamsL. and GermovJ. (eds), The Social Appetite: An Introduction to the Sociology of Food and Nutrition, Melbourne: Oxford University Press, pp. 242–258.
48.
NicodernV.C.DanzigerD.GelskaN.GulmezoglueA.M. and HofmeyrG.J., (1993), Do cabbage leaves prevent breast engorgement? A Randomised Controlled Study, Birth Issues in Perinatal Care, 20 (2): 61–64.
49.
OakeshottM., (1991), ‘Rationalism in Politics’, in OakeshottM. (ed.), Rationalism in Politics and Other Essays, (second edition), Indianapolis: Liberty Fund.
50.
OakleyA., (1981), From Here to Maternity: Becoming a Mother, Harmondsworth: Penguin.
51.
OakleyA., (1984), The Captured Womb: A History of Medical Care of Pregnant Women, Oxford: Blackwell.
52.
OakleyA., (1986), ‘Feminism, Motherhood and Medicine – Who Cares?’, in MitchellJ. and OakleyA. (eds), What is Feminism? Oxford: Blackwell.
53.
Office of Population Censuses and Surveys, (1980), Classification of Occupations, Her Majesty's Stationery Office, London.
54.
PhoenixA. and WollettA., (1991), Motherhood: social construction, politics and psychology, in PhoenixA.WoollettA. and LloydE. (eds), Motherhood: Meanings, Practices and Ideologies, London: Sage.
55.
PringleR., (1998), Sex and Medicine, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
56.
RansomJ., (1993), ‘Feminism, difference and discourse’, in RamazanogluC. (ed.), Up Against Foucault, London: Routledge.
57.
RibbensJ., (1994), Mothers and Their Children: a Feminist Sociology of Childrearing, London: Sage.
58.
Ribbens McCarthyJ.EdwardsR. and GilliesV., (2000), Parenting and Step-parenting: Contemporary Moral Tales. Oxford Brookes University, Centre for Family and Household Research Occasional Paper 4.
59.
RichA., (1976), Of Woman Born: Motherhood as Experience and Institution, New York: W.W. Norton.
60.
RomalisS., (1985), ‘Struggle between providers and recipients: the case of birth practices’, in LewinE. and OlesenV. (eds), Women, Health and Healing: Toward a New Perspective, New York: Tavistock.
61.
RoseN., (1992), ‘Governing the enterprising self’, in HeelasP. and MorrisP. (eds), The Values of the Enterprise Culture, London: Routledge.
62.
RoseN., (1996), ‘Governing “advanced liberal” democracies’, in BarryA.OsborneT. and RoseN. (eds), Foucault and Political Reason: Liberalism, Neo-Liberalism and Rationalities of Government, London: UCL Press.
63.
RoseN., (1999), Governing the Soul: The Shaping of the Private Self, (second edition), London: Free Association Books.
64.
RoseN. and MillerP., (1992), ‘Political power beyond the state’, British Journal of Sociology, 43 (2): 173–205.
65.
SawickiJ., (1991), Disciplining Foucault: Feminism, Power and the Body, London: Routledge.
66.
SchutzA., (1964), ‘The Stranger’, in Alfred Schutz: Collected Papers. Studies in Social Theory, The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff.
67.
ScottM.B. and LymanS.M., (1963), ‘Accounts,’American Sociological Review33: 46–62 .
68.
ScullyD., (1980), Men Who Control Women's Health: The Miseducation of Obstetricians and Gynecololigists, Boston: Houghton Mifflin.
69.
VirtanenS.RasanenL. and AroA., (1991), ‘Infant feeding in Finnish children 7 years of age with newly diagnosed IDDM’, Diabetes Care13: 415–417.
70.
WebbB. and StimsonG., (1976), ‘People's accounts of medical encounters’, in WadsworthM. and RobinsonD. (eds), Studies in Everyday Medical Life, London: Martin Robertson.
71.
WeedonC., (1987), Feminist Practice and Poststructuralist Theory, Oxford: Blackwell.
72.
WhiteA.S.FreethS. and OBrienM., (1992), Infant Feeding 1990, London, HMSO.
73.
WoodheadM., (1997), ‘Psychology and the cultural construction of children's needs’, in JamesA. and ProutA. (eds), Changing Family Values, Lewes: Falmer, pp. 63–84.
