Haecceity of becoming-mother: a diffractive analysis of babywearing through a global pandemic

Platt, Louise ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9063-1110 (2023) Haecceity of becoming-mother: a diffractive analysis of babywearing through a global pandemic. Cultural Studies: Critical Methodologies. ISSN 1532-7086

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Abstract

This paper problematises notions of good/bad mothering by putting to work Deleuze and Guattari’s haecceity (2004). Focusing on babywearing, it presents an autoethnography of my experiences of becoming-mother during the Covid-19 pandemic. Using diffractive analysis (Barad, 2014) I analyse the entanglement of my experiences of babywearing, research diaries, images/selfies, the regulations introduced during the pandemic, and the ‘global cultural script’ (Kerrane et al, 2021, 1154) of being a good mother. It works towards a position of (k)not knowing (Osgood, 2019), being open to the unknown. Under the lens of haecceity becoming-mother is ‘thisness’ – a middle, knotting, and unknotting, ever emergent.