Childcare Struggles, Maternal Workers and Social Reproduction : Maternal Workers and Social Reproduction

Spanning the United Kingdom, United States and Australia, this comparative study brings maternal workers’ politicized voices to the centre of contemporary debates on childcare, work and gender. The book illustrates how maternal workers continue to organize against low pay, exploitative working conditions and state retrenchment and provides a unique theorization of feminist divisions and solidarities. Bringing together social reproduction with maternal studies, this is a resonating call to build a cross-sectoral, intersectional movement around childcare. Maud Perrier shows why social reproduction needs to be at the centre of a critical theory of work, care and mothering for post-pandemic times.Spanning the United Kingdom, United States and Australia, this comparative study brings maternal workers’ politicized voices to the centre of contemporary debates on childcare, work and gender. The book illustrates how maternal workers continue to organize against low pay, exploitative working conditions and state retrenchment and provides a unique theorization of feminist divisions and solidarities. Bringing together social reproduction with maternal studies, this is a resonating call to build a cross-sectoral, intersectional movement around childcare. Maud Perrier shows why social reproduction needs to be at the centre of a critical theory of work, care and mothering for post-pandemic times Front Cover Childcare Struggles, Maternal Workers and Social Reproduction Copyright information Table of contents Acknowledgments Introduction Why maternal workers Childcare struggles on the rise Telling stories of fightbacks Feminist ways of knowing: making workers’ voices count The making of maternal workers The structure of the book 1 Counter-Thinking from the Nursery: Theorizing Contemporary Childcare Movements Introduction Why social reproduction? Unequal maternal labours Tales of depletion: grassroots women’s organizing, 1980–2020 Living legacies of the women’s liberation movement: universal childcare 50 years on Intersectionalizing contemporary childcare movements Why maternal workers? 2 Selfish Strikers and Intimate Unions: Early Years Educators’ Walkouts and the Big Steps Campaign, Australia Introduction Context The Big Steps campaign online Selfless workers versus ‘natural strikers’ ‘Everything would stop’: writing letters versus economic disruption Parent–worker solidarities Migrant educators’ political subjectivities and the whiteness of early years’ movements in Australia Conclusions 3 Mothering the Mothers: Stratified Depletion and Austerity in Bristol, United Kingdom Introduction The marketization of maternal care Context and methodology Activist community mothering in the neoliberal city Depletion: a tale of two cities Maternal entrepreneurs’ depletion Conclusions 4 At the Table or Thrown under the Bus: Migrant Nannies’ Organizing and Childcare Coalitions during the COVID-19 Pandemic Introduction Context Nanny–employer relationships: intimate exploitation Whose childcare crisis? Nanny organizing during the pandemic Childcare coalitions: migrant workers at the table or thrown under the bus? Capitalizing on fear: employers and COVID-19 contracts Aid versus building migrant worker power in a pandemic 5 Maternal Worker Power Introduction Towards a theory of maternal worker power For a qualitative sociology of social reproduction Maternal worker power as praxis Cultivating maternal worker power on dual terrains Maternal worker power as potential solidarity Maternal worker power as threat New directions for childcare struggles Pandemic Postscript Notes References Index Back Cover Spanning the UK, North America and Australia, this comparative study brings maternal workers' politicized voices to the centre of contemporary debates on childcare, work and gender. The book illustrates how maternal workers continue to organize against low pay, exploitative working conditions and state retrenchment and provides a unique theorization of feminist divisions and solidarities. Bringing together social reproduction with maternal studies, this is a resonating call to build a cross sectoral intersectional movement around childcare. Maud Perrier shows why social reproduction needs to be at the centre of a critical theory of work, care and mothering for post-pandemic times Spanning the UK, North America and Australia, this comparative study brings maternal workers’ politicized voices to the centre of contemporary debates on class, work and gender. The book illustrates why social reproduction needs to be at the centre of a critical theory of work, care and mothering for post-pandemic times.