Camille Barbagallo Phd Thesis 2016.Pdf
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THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF REPRODUCTION MOTHERHOOD, WORK AND THE HOME IN NEOLIBERAL BRITAIN CAMILLE BARBAGALLO A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements of the University of East London for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy MARCH 2016 ABSTRACT The Political Economy Of Reproduction: Motherhood, Work And The Home In Neoliberal Britain This thesis investigates how the processes and practices of reproduction have been transformed not only by the ascendant political rationality of neoliberalism but also by women’s struggles that have reconfigured motherhood, the domestic home and the gendered organisation of employment. Through exploring both the 1970s feminist demand for “free 24- hour nurseries” and the contemporary provision of extended, overnight and flexible childcare, care that is often referred to as “24-hour childcare”, the research contributes to feminist understandings of the gendered and racialised class dynamics inside and outside the home and the wage. The research repositions the ‘Woman Question’ as, yet again unavoidable and necessary for comprehending and intervening in the brutalising consequences of capitalist accumulation. Situated within the Marxist feminist tradition, the work of reproduction is understood as a cluster of tasks, affective relations and employment that have historically been constructed and experienced as ‘women’s work’. The interrelation between the subjectivity of motherhood and the political economy of reproduction is analysed through a feminist genealogy of 24-hour childcare in Britain. Using ethnographic encounters, archival research and interview data with mothers and childcare workers, the research tells a story about the women who have worked both inside and outside the home, raised children, cooked and cleaned, and who, both historically and in the present, continue to create an immense amount of wealth and value. As women's labour market participation has steadily increased over the last 40 years, the discourse of reproduction has shifted to one in which motherhood is increasingly constructed as a choice. Within neoliberal discourse the decision to have a child is constructed as a private matter for which individuals bear the costs and responsibility. The thesis argues that, as a result of motherhood being constructed more and more as something that is chosen, the spaces of resistance and opposition towards motherhood have been limited and resistance has been individuated and privatised. ! ii CONTENTS Abbreviations v Acknowledgements vi Dedication viii CHAPTER 1 Managing Motherhood in the Neoliberal Era 1.1 Joy: Encounter #1 1 1.2 Managing Motherhood 5 1.3 Capitalism as Separation 8 1.4 Neoliberal Reproduction 14 1.5 Thesis Structure 23 CHAPTER 2 Beginnings, Numberless Beginnings 2.1 Methods, Data and Scale 28 2.2 A History of the Present 32 2.3 Situating the Researcher and Situated Knowledge 35 2.4 Grey Documents and Ethnographic Encounters 37 2.5 Connections and Limitations 42 CHAPTER 3 The Grammar Of Reproduction 3.1 Inheritances 45 3.2 Women and the Subversion of the Community: Encounter # 2 47 3.3 The Housework (Debate) is Never Done 50 3.4 Shifting Registers from the Domestic to the Reproductive 55 3.5 The Rise and Rise Of Waged Reproductive Work 61 3.6 The Great Domestic Confinement 65 CHAPTER 4 The Never Ending Story of Work and Care 4.1 24-hour Childcare: Encounter# 3 76 4.2 Home and Work 78 4.3 The Production of Atypical Work 80 4.4 The Organisation of Choice 85 4.5 Never-ending Markets 93 4.6 Childcare: No Longer a Subject of Indifference 100 CHAPTER 5 Invisible Hands of the Market: Choice, Labour and Luck 5.1 From Rights to Choices: Encounter #4 113 5.2 The Labour of Reproduction 117 5.3 The Distribution of Value and Gendered Labour 125 ! iii 5.4 The Spaces and Times of Reproduction 129 5.5 What’s Luck Got To Do With It: Choice and Planning 136 5.6 The Things That Everyone is Supposed to Want 143 5.7 Two Faces of Luck 145 CHAPTER 6 Back To The Future: The Women’s Liberation Movement and The Demand For 24-hour Nurseries 6.1 Echoes 149 6.2 The Personal is Political 152 6.3 Grey Documents and Playgroups: Encounter# 5 159 6.4 Differing Conceptions of Childcare 161 6.5 We Are All Housewives Now 166 6.6 Locating Race in the Memory of 1968 171 CHAPTER 7 Unwaged Reproductive Labour and the Family Wage 7.1 Inside and Out 178 7.2 Abolition of Want as a Practicable Post-War Aim 181 7.3 Race, Labour and Motherhood 188 7.4 Motherhood as a Full-Time Occupation 193 7.5 Challenging Bowlbyism 197 7.6 Oral Histories and Archives: Encounter# 6 200 7.7 Silences: The Said and the Unsaid 202 CHAPTER 8 Another Way Home: Slavery, Motherhood and Resistance 8.1 Breeding Part 1: Encounter # 7 208 8.2 Dependencies 211 8.3 Separations 214 8.4 Labour 218 8.5 Home 221 CHAPTER 9 Seizing the Means of Reproduction 9.1 Breeding Part 2: Encounter # 8 227 9.2 Knots 228 References and Bibliography 236 ! iv ABBREVIATIONS ACAS Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service ECEC early childhood education and care IVF In vitro fertilisation NCS National Childcare Strategy NJACCWER National Joint Action Campaign Committee for Women’s Equal Rights NHS National Health Service ONS Office of National Statistics OWAAD Organisation of Women of African and Asian Descent WLM Women’s Liberation Movement WERS Workplace Employment Relations Survey WWCC Working Women’s Charter Campaign ! v ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I always read the acknowledgements. In the early days of researching this thesis, I considered using extracts from various acknowledgements as data. I was struck by how often the sentence “and the last word must go to my wife”, or some variation of it, appeared in so many books. There is something about leaving our gratitude and thanks for the reproductive work that makes research, writing and life possible to the last paragraph — often the last sentence — that speaks volumes to the structure and organisation of reproduction more generally. What gets counted, how it is valued, how authors care and are cared for; you get a hint of all that in the acknowledgements section. In a thesis that is primarily concerned with revaluing reproductive labour, it would be clumsy to repeat the structure that leaves the wife until last. Surely, we should be at least curious, to see what, if anything, happens to the giving of thanks and gratitude when we disrupt the order of value. I owe thanks in many directions and have accrued many reproductive debts. First of all to Nicholas Beuret, without whom this research simply would not have been possible. The long conversations, the political struggles, a visa marriage and, literally, nearly every meal I have consumed in the last decade have provided me with the space to think, fall in love, get angry and continue to do too much. Our children, Azadi Frances and Bastien Cruz, from whom I have learnt so much about the work of reproduction — you are that awesome combination of being openly rebellious and defiant, yet generous, loyal and curious. I know you will both be happy that, after all these years, I am finally finished writing ‘my big book’, though sadly it still does not have any pictures. To all four of my parents, Ann Cazzulino, John McIntosh, David Barbagallo and Fleur Kingham. You have all, in your own ways, provided different lessons on questions of work and home. As well, my other-parents, Robyn Cook and John Dick, for surviving the worst of the teenage years, up a mountain in a tin shed and a caravan. To my sister, Lucie and brothers, Luke, Samuel, Thomas and Dominic, with special thanks to Uncle Sam for coming and living with us in small town America in the last months of the thesis and for creating the butt-monster who lives in the attic. The work of motherhood is only made possible by all of those who care and look after our children while we are doing other things. To all the amazing people who looked after Azadi and Bastien so that I could write, earn a wage and go to demos; Rebecca Galbraith, Luciana Talpo, Arkem White, Cecile Campagne and Florence Dent. And to all the communist and radical mammas, many of who have also done huge amounts of childcare: Roisin MacDowell, Janna Graham, Ziggy Melamed, Fiona McAllister, Alice Farrell, Rachel Clarke, Claire English, Josie Cousens, Vicki Sentas, Marta Malo and Xanthe Whittaker. I am indebted to the grounded conversations, insights and sanity-producing moments in a sea of playdates, wet-wipes and gentrification. And to the radical papas who, unlike so many others, have stepped up to the challenge that is raising children: Eoin O’Cearnaigh, Nico Vass and Duncan McCann. ! vi The insights and arguments in this thesis also belong to the collective processes that so many comrades have contributed to in the formation of the organisation, Plan C. Special thanks to Alessio Lunghi, Craig Gent, Simon Barber, Georgia Harrison Ele Lamb, Gareth Brown, Richard Brodie, Paul Rekret, Judy Thorne, Ben Lear, Keir Milburn, Matthew Dunne, Nadia Idle, Cam Stocks, Tabitha Bast and Seth Wheeler for redefining what we mean by radical left organisation and being brave enough to bring reproduction to the centre of our political work, and to Tim Kelly for indulging all my film and design demands. The genealogy of Plan C would not be complete without also noting the earlier experiments and rich conversations regarding reproduction and the commons at the Commoner Convivium Camp held in Italy and France (2007 – 2010) with George Caffentzis, Mariarosa Dalla Costa, Dagmar Diesner, Olivier de Marcellus, Malav Kunuga, Ben Trott, Tadzio Mueller and especially, to Vivienne and Suzanne for insisting on the necessity of being, at times, a bad mother.