Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Notes on contributors
- Acknowledgements
- Foreword
- Preface
- Introduction Biographical approaches to mothering: identities and lived realities
- 1 Becoming and being a Polish mother: narratives on the motherhood experience
- 2 ‘A good mother is a good mother and a good wife’: gender politics and mothering practice among older Iranian Muslim women
- 3 Exploration of mothering and shifting identities in Kenya
- 4 Biographies of Roma mothering in contemporary Czechia: exploring tapestries of multi-ethnic gendered identity in a marginalised social position
- 5 Identities and life choices of mothers in a disadvantaged neighbourhood in England
- 6 Giving voice to Irish mothers experiencing separation and divorce
- 7 Ideal, good enough and failed motherhood: how disabled Canadian mothers manage in hostile circumstances
- 8 Confronting meanings of motherhood in neoliberal Australia: six crystallised case studies
- 9 Unplanned breakdown of foster mothering: biographical perspectives on identity challenges of foster mothers
- 10 Non-mothers: identities, ambiguity, biography making and life choices
- Conclusion Exploring mothering in future biographical research: interdisciplinarity, transdisciplinarity and new research agendas
- Index
4 - Biographies of Roma mothering in contemporary Czechia: exploring tapestries of multi-ethnic gendered identity in a marginalised social position
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 24 January 2024
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Notes on contributors
- Acknowledgements
- Foreword
- Preface
- Introduction Biographical approaches to mothering: identities and lived realities
- 1 Becoming and being a Polish mother: narratives on the motherhood experience
- 2 ‘A good mother is a good mother and a good wife’: gender politics and mothering practice among older Iranian Muslim women
- 3 Exploration of mothering and shifting identities in Kenya
- 4 Biographies of Roma mothering in contemporary Czechia: exploring tapestries of multi-ethnic gendered identity in a marginalised social position
- 5 Identities and life choices of mothers in a disadvantaged neighbourhood in England
- 6 Giving voice to Irish mothers experiencing separation and divorce
- 7 Ideal, good enough and failed motherhood: how disabled Canadian mothers manage in hostile circumstances
- 8 Confronting meanings of motherhood in neoliberal Australia: six crystallised case studies
- 9 Unplanned breakdown of foster mothering: biographical perspectives on identity challenges of foster mothers
- 10 Non-mothers: identities, ambiguity, biography making and life choices
- Conclusion Exploring mothering in future biographical research: interdisciplinarity, transdisciplinarity and new research agendas
- Index
Summary
Introduction
Central Europe is considered a cultural space that has complex intersections of languages, ethnic identities and cultures (Johnson, 2010). People with Roma ethnic-minority backgrounds are no exception. On the contrary, their biographies display the symptomatic complexity and tensions with overwhelming power (Sidiropulu-Janků, 2015). Research shows that Czech Roma are oppressed, discriminated against, and economically disadvantaged (European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights, 2016; Obrovská and Sidiropulu-Janků, 2021). While interviewing Czech Roma mothers, a diversity of coping strategies was identified, and a decision was made to analyse the intersection of ethnic and economic aspects of mothering over the course of the original project plan. This chapter looks at mothering from a twofold perspective – how Czech Roma mothers understand the notion of good mothering on both a general level and on a more personal basis. Czech Roma represent an ethnic-minority group that is neither coherent nor a traditional social group, yet they show significant differences from the ethno-majority population, for example, with regard to benefit fraud (Kroutilová-Nováková and Kinská, 2017). Living in predominantly urban social settings, mainly influenced by economic and educational deprivation and not symbolically valued for their difference, they represent the survivalist lifestyle of the undeserving people. However, their social structural position is not unique, and closer research of their narrative, self-reflexive understanding of themselves may serve as a reservoir of uncovered knowledge about living outside the symbolic normative mainstream (Frýbert and Pařízková, 2014).
Biographical perspectives on mothering
Being a mother is a seemingly self-explanatory social role. It appears to simply mean to give birth and nurture a child. In this respect, the combination of physical qualities (procreation, pregnancy, giving birth) and normative social practices (upbringing and care versus the economic security expected from a father) resembles pre-reflexive thinking about gender, and the role of a mother is closely interlinked with feminine gender stereotypes (Arendell, 2000).
Achieving distance from the prefabricated normative labels may be especially challenging for people in a socially disadvantaged position. The biographical method is especially useful here not only for its voice-giving potential (Roberts, 2002), but also for uncovering contextual and nonstereotypical notions of mothering through a focus on life narrative as a form of reflection on an individual's life project (Breckner et al, 2000; Chamberlayne et al, 2000).
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Biographical Research and the Meanings of MotheringLife Choices, Identities and Methods, pp. 82 - 102Publisher: Bristol University PressPrint publication year: 2023