‘This is not what it’s supposed to be like’: Avoiding unwelcome identifications associated with public breastfeeding
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Date
2021-02Author
Taormina, Paola
McVittie, Chris
McKinlay, Andy
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Taormina, P., McVittie, C. & McKinlay, A. (2021) ‘This is not what it’s supposed to be like’: Avoiding unwelcome identifications associated with public breastfeeding. American Journal of Qualitative Research, 5(1), pp. 30-43.
Abstract
From a discursive perspective, identities fall to be understood not as inherent properties of
individuals but rather as matters that are negotiated within and emerge from social
interactions with others. Adopting this perspective, we examine how mothers who breastfeed
their infants in public negotiate issues of identity. The activity of public breastfeeding
presents problems for identity in that it is often seen by others, and sometimes by
breastfeeding mothers themselves, as socially inappropriate in that by engaging in public
breastfeeding women are partly exposing their bodies. The aim of this study was to
investigate how mothers who breastfeed their infants in public seek to address identity
problems that can arise from engaging in this activity. We examine discussions from a focus
group conducted with five members of a drop-in support group for breastfeeding mothers.
Discourse analysis of group discussions shows that group members provide descriptions of
difficulties that they have experienced when breastfeeding in public, and partly exposing their
bodies to co-present others. These descriptions, however, rely on detail that allows the
participants or other group members to undermine them and to ward off the potentially
negative identities with which they are associated. The descriptions, then, are designed to
attend to social concerns surrounding public breastfeeding and thereby to allow participants
to construct identities that are not associated with problems.