Reassembling Motherhood: Procreation and Care in a Globalized World

“What does motherhood mean in the twenty-first century? If you want informed and fascinating answers, read Reassembling Motherhood. A stellar interdisciplinary team of international scholars report on how technological advances, cultural changes, global migration, and variable state policies have transformed mothering. This landmark book will not only shape scholarly research but also instruct policymakers and engage a wide audience.”- Viviana A. Zelizer, Lloyd Cotsen ’50 Professor of Sociology at Princeton University and author ofEconomic Lives: How Culture Shapes the Economy

This fabulous collection challenges our conventional understanding of motherhood and its connection to bodies, technologies, global migration, and policy, and pushes the debate to the next level. Ergas, Jenson, Michel and their contributing authors masterfully and convincingly trace the dismantling of the traditional notion of motherhood and the expansion of its choices, and how these in turn create different forms of social inequalities, and physical, emotional, and global connections and disconnections. This volume is a must read for anyone interested in the issues of motherhood, care, social inequality, and public policy.

—Ito Peng, University of Toronto, coeditor ofGender, Migration, and the Work of Care: A Multi-Scalar Approach to the Pacific Rim

Ergas, Jenson, and Michel have edited an important collection that crystallizes the unequal and uneven transformations in the legal, social, economic, and biological relations of motherhood in the twenty-first century. Together,Reassembling Motherhood explores what we know, pushes the boundaries of knowledge, and raises new questions for further research. The collection is provocative in the best sense.

—Eileen Boris, University of California, Santa Barbara, coauthor ofCaring for America: Home Health Workers in the Shadow of the Welfare State