Mad mothering

Mad mothering: Learning from the intersections of madness, mothering and disability

Patty Douglas
Brandon University

Katherine Runswick-Cole
University of Sheffield

Sara Ryan
Oxford University

Penny Fogg
University of Sheffield

Abstract

This paper brings together the fields of Mad Studies (LeFrancois et al.), Matricentric Feminism (O’Reilly, Matricentric Feminism) and Critical Disability Studies (Goodley, “Dis/entangling Critical Disability Studies”). Our aim is to expose and challenge “relations of ruling” (Smith 79) that both produce and discipline ‘mad mothers of disabled children’. We begin our analysis by exploring the un/commonalities of the emerging histories of the three disciplines. We then identify analytical points of intersection between them including: critiques of neoliberalism; troubling the ‘norm’ (including radical resistance and activism); intersectionality, post-colonial and queer theory. Finally, we turn to points of divergence and possible tensions between these theoretical approaches as we explore the absence of disability in Matricentric Feminism, the contested place of mothering in Critical Disability Studies and the absence of mothering in Mad Studies. We are invested throughout in the political possibilities of affect and activism that emerge from the feminist insight that the ‘personal is political’. Finally, we consider what can be learned from an intersectional critique of ‘good mothering’ and how this theorization might inform social justice work.

This is the accepted author copy of an article forthcoming (2021) in the Journal of Literary and Cultural Disability Studies. 

Recommended Citation:

Douglas, Patty, Katherine Runswick-Cole, Sara Ryan & Penny Fogg. (2021). Mad

mothering: Learning from the intersections of madness, mothering and disability. Journal of Literary and Cultural Disability Studies. 15 (1): 39-56.