The Ethics and Politics of Breastfeeding : Power, Pleasure, Poetics

Responding to the most widely read breastfeeding manual, La Leche League's__The Womanly Art of Breastfeeding__, Robyn Lee's__The Ethics and Politics of Breastfeeding__explores breastfeeding as an art that must be developed through skillful application of effort and distinguished from a merely natural or physiological process.__The Ethics and Politics of Breastfeeding__challenges the dominant understanding of breastfeeding and cultivates an alternative conception as an ethical, embodied practice of the self. Drawing on the work of Michel Foucault, Emmanuel Levinas, and Luce Irigaray, Lee develops a new understanding of breastfeeding as an "art of living," where the practice is reconsidered in the light of ongoing social inequalities. « Responding to the most widely read breastfeeding manual, La Leche League’s The Womanly Art of Breastfeeding, Robyn Lee’s The Ethics and Politics of Breastfeeding explores breastfeeding as an art that must be developed through skillful application of effort and distinguished from a merely natural or physiological process.The Ethics and Politics of Breastfeeding challenges the dominant understanding of breastfeeding and cultivates an alternative conception as an ethical, embodied practice of the self. Drawing on the work of Michel Foucault, Emmanuel Levinas, and Luce Irigaray, Lee develops a new understanding of breastfeeding as an "art of living," where the practice is reconsidered in the light of ongoing social inequalities. »-- Résumé de l'éditeur Responding to the most widely read breastfeeding manual, La Leche League's The Womanly Art of Breastfeeding , Robyn Lee's The Ethics and Politics of Breastfeeding explores breastfeeding as an art that must be developed through skillful application of effort and distinguished from a merely natural or physiological process. The Ethics and Politics of Breastfeeding challenges the dominant understanding of breastfeeding and cultivates an alternative conception as an ethical, embodied practice of the self. Drawing on the work of Michel Foucault, Emmanuel Levinas, and Luce Irigaray, Lee develops a new understanding of breastfeeding as an "art of living," where the practice is reconsidered in the light of ongoing social inequalities. "The slogan "Breastfeeding; it's natural" is the motivation force behind the most widely read breastfeeding manual, La Leche League's The womanly art of breastfeeding ... Robyn Lee questions the absolutism of this message in The ethics and politics of breastfeeding, arguing that breastfeeding's representation as a biological marker of femininity has always been politically motivated in that it is tied to the revaluing of woman's domestic role and the undermining of their public power"--Book jacket