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Adoptive Maternal Bodies: A Queer Paradigm for Rethinking Mothering?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 March 2020

Shelley M. Park
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Abstract

A pronatalist perspective on maternal bodies renders the adoptive maternal body queer. In this essay, I argue that the queerness of the adoptive maternal body makes it a useful epistemic standpoint from which to critique dominant views of mothering. In particular, exploring motherhood through the lens of adoption reveals the discursive mediation and social regulation of all maternal bodies, as well as the normalizing assumptions of heteronormativity, “reprosexuality,” and family homogeneity that frame a traditional view of the biological family. As participants in motherhood who resist “repro-narrativity,”“reprosexuality,” and essentialism, adoptive maternal bodies have the potential to both queer our notions of normal mothering and normalize our notions of queer mothering.

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Type
Research Article
Information
Hypatia , Volume 21 , Issue 1: Special Issue: Maternal Bodies , Winter 2006, pp. 201 - 226
Copyright
Copyright © 2006 by Hypatia, Inc.

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