Mothering Practices in Wythenshawe, South Manchester: Class, Kinship, Place and Belonging in Contemporary Britain
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MOTHERING PRACTICES IN WYTHENSHAWE, SOUTH MANCHESTER: CLASS, KINSHIP, PLACE AND BELONGING IN CONTEMPORARY BRITAIN A thesis submitted to The University of Manchester for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Social Anthropology in the Faculty of Humanities 2013 LORENA LILIANA VALENCIA GALVEZ School of Social Sciences Department of Social Anthropology List of Contents List of illustrations ................................................................................................................ 3 ABSTRACT ............................................................................................................................. 4 DECLARATION ...................................................................................................................... 5 COPYRIGHT STATEMENT ...................................................................................................... 5 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS .......................................................................................................... 6 INTRODUCTION ........................................................................................................................ 7 Mothering and relatedness.................................................................................................. 8 Social Space, Place and Belonging ..................................................................................... 14 Mothering and Social Class ................................................................................................ 19 Anthropology in Britain: abroad or at home? .................................................................... 25 About Methods .................................................................................................................. 28 Ethical Issues ...................................................................................................................... 32 Practical Details .................................................................................................................. 33 Data Recording Procedures ............................................................................................... 35 CHAPTER ONE: “LIVED SOCIAL SPACE ON THE ESTATE” ........................................................ 38 Wythenshawe Boundaries ................................................................................................. 40 Social Space on the Council Estate .................................................................................... 46 A brief history of the Wythenshawe Estate ....................................................................... 50 Living on the Estate ............................................................................................................ 55 Learning to be local ............................................................................................................ 57 A Journey around the Estate .............................................................................................. 59 CHAPTER TWO: “ON VOLUNTEERS” ...................................................................................... 76 State-effects ....................................................................................................................... 78 Volunteering at “Start-Up” ................................................................................................ 82 Start-Up Policies ................................................................................................................. 82 The Training Course ........................................................................................................... 84 The Voluntary Sector and the Welfare State in England: the Coproduction of Motherhood ........................................................................................................................................... 90 “Sally’s unique personal development as a growing mum” .............................................. 94 CHAPTER THREE: “ON MOTHERHOOD” ............................................................................... 103 A Genealogy of Subjectification ....................................................................................... 104 Being a mother as being a particular kind of person ....................................................... 108 Meeting Annie: “She’s my Nanny”................................................................................... 110 2 Meeting Sharon: “You gotta choose in life” .................................................................... 116 Meeting Pam: “Being a mum? It’s hard, it’s really hard” ................................................ 120 CHAPTER FOUR: “MOTHERING, DISCIPLINE & NATION” ..................................................... 124 Being soft; from “bad parenting” to a “soft-touch” nation ............................................. 128 Discipline: “It takes a village to raise a child” .................................................................. 137 CHAPTER FIVE: “BELONGING AND TROUBLE” ..................................................................... 157 Dwelling on the Estate: Belonging and Trouble ............................................................... 160 CONCLUSION ........................................................................................................................ 175 REFERENCES ......................................................................................................................... 189 List of illustrations Figure 1: Greater Manchester ................................................................................................ 41 Figure 2: Wythenshawe in the context of Manchester city. .................................................. 42 Figure 3: Wythenshawe´s Heritage Trail ................................................................................ 43 Figure 4: Tunnel between multi-storey car park and the supermarket ................................ 49 Figure 5: Forum Leisure Centre .............................................................................................. 49 Figure 6: Wythenshawe´s streets based on Barry Parker´s design ........................................ 63 Figure 7: Street at Wythenshawe .......................................................................................... 65 Figure 8: Wythenshawe´s Main Roads................................................................................... 67 Figure 9: Wythenshawe´s Houses .......................................................................................... 69 3 ABSTRACT The University of Manchester Lorena Liliana Valencia Galvez Doctor of Philosophy in Social Anthropology “Being a Mother in Wythenshawe, South Manchester: Class, Kinship, Social Space and Belonging in Contemporary Britain”. 2012 This ethnography draws upon fieldwork experiences in South Manchester, England. The central theme is an exploration of the everyday relatedness of mothering practices, class, space and belonging. I examine mothering as practiced in both the politics of state intervention and through the mundane experiences of women living in a specific social space: the Wythenshawe Council Estate. This research explores how support programs for raising children and a specific home-visiting volunteer project to support mothers promote the production and reproduction of a particular kind of moral citizen (individualised, autonomous, and disciplined selves). I argue that volunteering schemes come to play a key role as government technology. Women volunteers who live in the community in which they volunteer (indigenous experts) come to act as a model for other local women, who are usually defined by the authorities (professional experts), as lacking the right kind of knowledge The volunteers are thus challenged to enhance and empower their neighbors and friends. However, this transmission does not occur in a linear fashion, but in quite subversive ways. While local women are actively involved in the use and appropriation of the resources provided by these programs, at the same time, they resist and transform them according to their own needs and desires. I also argue that mothering functions as metaphor and metonym for the imagined nation-state. The experience of living on the Estate is not just a physical act, but a permanent negotiation of who you are as a person in the defined social space of the Estate. I learned what it means to belong to Wythenshawe through its spatiality, but I also learnt a particular mode of belonging through my own racial and class background. My experiences of being a Latin-American ethnographer living on the Estate, whose population is mostly white and living on low income, significantly shaped my fieldwork experiences 4 DECLARATION No portion of the work referred to in the thesis has been submitted in support of an application for another degree or qualification of this or any other university or other institute of learning. COPYRIGHT STATEMENT i. The author of this thesis (including any appendices and/or schedules to this thesis) owns certain copyright or related rights in it (the “Copyright”) and she has given The University of Manchester certain rights to use such Copyright, including for administrative purposes. ii. Copies of this thesis, either in full or in extracts and whether in hard or electronic copy, may be made only in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 (as amended) and regulations issued under it or, where appropriate,