Re/Assembling the pregnant and parenting teenager: narratives from the field (s)

In 2003, Wendy Luttrell posed an important question: what might result if we were able to turn questions of judgement about pregnant and parenting teenagers into questions of interest about their sense of self and identity-making? This book takes up the challenge, offering a re/assemblage of what is, can be and perhaps should be known about teenage pregnancy and parenting in the context of the twenty-first century. The collection presents original contributions from leading commentators in four key contexts: the United States of America, the United Kingdom, Aotearoa New Zealand and the Republic of Ireland, all sites of elevated incidence of and/or concern around what is commonly articulated as the «problem» of teenage pregnancy and parenting. In offering a multi-disciplinary reading of the narratives of young men and women, this volume engages with the ambiguity shared by all of us in confronting the life transition that is pregnancy and parenting. Drawing in contributions from the United States, the United Kingdom and Republic of Ireland and Aotearoa New Zealand, this book seeks to foreground shifting experiences of teenage pregnancy and parenting in time and space. In the process, the work cuts across enduring ?stigma? contests and dominant discourses which seek to capture, understand and render fixable the ?problem? of teenage pregnancy and parenting, whichever discourse is being privileged. This book offers a re/assemblage of what is, can be and should be known about teenage pregnancy and parenting in the twenty-first century. It examines the narratives of young men and women in the USA, the UK, Aotearoa New Zealand and Ireland, all sites of elevated concern around what is often articulated as the 'problem' of teenage parenting