Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• Caitlin M. Mulcahy
• Diana C. Parry

Titel

Awakenings: A performance text about first time mothers making connections

Ist Teil von

• International review of qualitative research, 2012-02, Vol.4 (4), p.335-351

Ort / Verlag

University of California Press

Erscheinungsjahr

2012

Quelle

Alma/SFX Local Collection

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• Poulos (2010) states that “performance is a gradual awakening” (p. 211). Parenthood, on the other hand, can be a very rude awakening indeed. This performance piece on parenthood and the significance of first-time parenting groups, is full of awakenings, both gradual and rude. Drawing upon 24 interviews with members of grassroots “mothers' groups”, this performance piece explores the researcher as first time mother, existing in the space “between awakening and full consciousness, between dream and everyday reality, between inspiration and creation” (p. 212). We use performance, as Alexander and Myers (2010) describe, to “rehearse possibilities of transformation, intervention, and change” (p. 264); specifically, we propose a structured postnatal program through the Public Health Agency of Canada that will assist in the formation of mothers' (or parents') groups to help ease the transition to parenthood. We also use this performance piece to represent motherhood “from within”. As Nelson (2009) argues, “Motherhood is a topic of interest in many disciplines, but much of the mass information about motherhood talksaroundmotherhood,aboutmotherhood, without speakingofmotherhoodfrom withinit” (p. 14, original emphasis). For, performance and motherhood have at least one thing in common: “After, one is never the same” (Pelias, 2010, p. 173).