Locating the m(o)ther

Article

Voela, A. 2009. Locating the m(o)ther. Studies in the Maternal. 3.
AuthorsVoela, A.
Abstract

When women embark on a journey of self-discovery, which often bears strong similarities to the psychoanalytic process, they eventually reach the realm of the M(O)ther. In some cases the latter is a heterotopic place, both an actual place in which women contemplate the complexities of their maternal attachments, and a literary/metaphorical locus with which women express the contemporary shifts in the maternal iconography and the representation of femininity. Combining Lacanian psychoanalysis and the Foucauldian notion of heterotopia, this paper discusses the role of the heterotopic maternal place in three contemporary Greek novels arguing that such a place has the potential to become a permanent ethical locus for contemporary women. Accommodating both the traversal of fantasies and symptoms and the departure from the conventional hierarchical order, it inaugurates a critical attitude towards the world and oneself by means of a transgressive or 'traversarial' ordering.

Keywordsgender studies; feminism; maternal attachment; representation of femininity
JournalStudies in the Maternal
Journal citation3
ISSN1759-0434
Year2009
Accepted author manuscript
License
CC BY-ND
Web address (URL)http://www.mamsie.bbk.ac.uk/voela.html
http://hdl.handle.net/10552/1029
Publication dates
Print2009
Publication process dates
Deposited15 Nov 2010
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Voela, A. (2009) ‘Locating the m(o)ther’ Studies in the maternal, issue 3..

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License: CC BY-ND

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