The Order of Life: How Phenomenologies of Pregnancy Revise and Reject Theories of the Subject. (original) (raw)
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The fundamental and irreducible experience of carrying a child and bringing forth new life from one’s own body is in this anthology subjected to careful analyses that specifically, though not exclusively, draw on female experiences. In this way the crucial role of a phenomenology of pregnancy for contemporary thought is investigated. Exploring the phenomenon of pregnancy not just as a biological process, but also as a problem of lived bodily meaning, the contributions investigate a wide array of experiences that engage the limits of human life, subjectivity, intersubjectivity, and ethics, but also opens important methodological perspectives on the relation transcendental phenomenology and empirical research. Eds. Jonna Bornemark and Nicholas Smith Content: Jonna Bornemark, Nicholas Smith, Introduction Nicholas Smith, Phenomenology of Pregnancy: A Cure for Philosophy? Stella Sandford, Feminist Phenomenology, Pregnancy and Transcendental Subjectivity Alice Pugliese, Phenomenology of Drives: Between Biological and Personal Life Sarah LaChance Adams, Erotic Intersubjectivity: Sex, Death, and Maternity in Bataille April Flakne, Nausea as Interoceptive Annunciation Mao Naka, The Otherness of Reproduction: Passivity and Control Erik Jansson Boström, The Unborn Child and the Father: Acknowledgement and the Creation of the Other Joan Raphael-Leff, “Two-in-One-Body”: Unconscious Representations and Ethical, Dimensions of Inter-Corporeality in Childbearing Grainney Lucey, The Difference of Experience between Maternity and Maternal in the Work of Julia Kristeva Erik Bryngelsson, The Problem of Unity in Psychoanalysis: Birth Trauma and Separation Jonna Bornemark, Life beyond Individuality: A-subjective Experience in Pregnancy
"An equivocal couple overwhelmed by life": A Phenomenological analysis of pregnancy
philoSOPHIA, 2014
Two conceptions of human generativity prevail in contemporary feminist philosophy. First, several contributors argue that the experience of pregnancy, when analyzed by phenomenological tools, undermines several distinctions that are central to western philosophy, most importantly the subject-object distinction and the self-other and own-alien distinctions. This line of argument was already outlined by Iris Marion Young in her influential essay "Pregnant Embodiment: Subjectivity and Alienation" (1984). The other dominant argument is related to the first one, and it states that organic birth is the event that establishes the first experiential separation between the self and the other. On this understanding the mother-fetus relation would not involve any relations between two corporeal selves; all such relations would be postnatal. This notion has been defended, for example, by Christine Schües (1997, 2000) and Johanna Oksala (2003). 1
Södertörn Philosophical Studies 18, Elanders, 2016
In the following, I will analyze the phenomenon of pregnancy and the involved problem of the instinctual life of subjects from a phenomenological point of view. This provides a specific and in my view fruitful methodology, consisting in the observation and description of a concrete experience. In contrast with the empirical analysis of natural sciences, the phenomenological approach does not attempt to isolate single “units” of experience by interpreting their consecutive connection in terms of causality. Phenomenology tries to describe the peculiar stream of experience and the dynamics which make subjective and objective aspects of the observed phenomenon inseparable. As phenomenologists, we follow and describe the inner dynamic of experience, thus unfolding its permanent structures, without forgetting its nature as lived experience, i.e. as “someone’s experience.” Therefore, before analyzing a phenomenon, we have to choose one particular experiential subject and always be aware of this primal choice, which is crucial for the whole analysis. My approach will focus on the point of view of the mother. Obviously, many different subjects are involved in what we can call the “situation” of pregnancy: not just the pregnant woman, but also her partner, any older children, her social environment, and the foetus which is not yet a subject, although is set to become one. All of the latter have to deal with the new situation. Yet the pregnant woman offers, I would argue, the most favourable position to describe the experience from a first-person and self-aware perspective, thus assuring the basic character of a phenomenological description. I will try to identify the feeling of strangeness and the woman’s partial loss of control over her own body, as one (albeit fundamental) feature of the pregnancy experience. I will argue that this feeling cannot be reduced to a limited side-effect of the physical and psychological transformation caused by pregnancy, but that it belongs to the fundamental characteristics of subjective life and has to be included in a comprehensive description of the living subject.
“It Happens, But I’m Not There”: On the Phenomenology of Childbirth
Human Studies, 2021
Phenomenologically grounded research on pregnancy is a thriving area of activity in feminist studies and related disciplines. But what has been largely omitted in this area of research is the experience of childbirth itself. This paper proposes a phenomenological analysis of childbirth inspired by the work of Merleau-Ponty. The paper proceeds from the conviction that the concept of anonymity can play a critical role in explicating the affective structure of childbirth. This is evident in at least two respects. First, the concept of anonymity gives structural specificity to the different levels of bodily existence at work in childbirth. Second, the concept of anonymity can play a powerful explanatory role in accounting for the sense of strangeness accompanying childbirth. To flesh these ideas out, I focus on two attributes of birth, sourced from first-person narratives of childbirth. The first aspect concerns the sense of leaving one's body behind during childbirth while the second aspect concerns the sense of strangeness accompanying the first encounter with the baby upon successful delivery. I take both of these aspects of childbirth seriously, treating them as being instructive not only of the uniqueness of childbirth but also revealing something important about bodily life more generally. Accordingly, the paper unfolds in three stages. First, I will critically explore the concept of anonymity in Merleau-Ponty; second, I will apply this concept to childbirth; finally, I will provide an outline of how childbirth sheds light on the broader nature of bodily life.
The Phenomenology of Woman to Mother: The Transformative Experience of Childbirth
1944
We have no philosophy of birth. Mary O'Brien argues that this hole in the fabric of knowledge is not merely an oversight, a dropped stitch in epistemology. In The Politics of Reproduction she argues that the very systems of thought that we have at hand to describe, explain, and bestow significance are themselves male compensa tions for the inferential nature of paternity and the female dominion of reproduction.
Philosophical Inquiries into Pregnancy, Childbirth, and Mothering
Philosophical Inquiries into Pregnancy, Childbirth, and Mothering, 2013
reviewed by anna hennessey The past two years mark an impressive moment in the history of philosophical scholarship on childbirth, pregnancy, and mothering. The almost simultaneous publication of Philosophical Inquiries into Pregnancy, Childbirth, and Mothering, part of Routledge's series on Contemporary Philosophy, and Fordham University Press' 2013 volume, Coming to Life: Philosophies of Pregnancy, Childbirth, and Mothering (edited by Sarah LaChance Adams and Caroline R. Lundquist) demonstrates the growing academic interest in the philosophical import of maternal subjects. The University of Oregon's 2009 conference, Philosophical Inquiry into Pregnancy, Childbirth and Mothering Conference catalyzed the compilation and publication of both works. These works help fill the longstanding intellectual void that revolves around topics of pregnancy, childbirth, and mothering within the field of philosophy and the humanities. In this review, I examine the material of Routledge's publication alone. In their introduction, editors Sheila Lintott and Maureen Sander-Staudt join with the volume's authors to question canonical male understandings of pregnancy, birth and mothering in philosophy, as found for example in works by Plato, who categorizes pregnancy and childbirth as mere bodily functions and motherhood as a sub-rational activity; Aristotle, who diminishes and ignores motherhood's import beyond its connection to biology; and Immanuel Kant and Jean-Jacques Rousseau, who naturalize motherhood and describe it as a romantic or naturalistic endeavor as opposed to a philosophical one (3). The editors explain that although philosophers have historically focused
Phenomenology of pregnancy and the ethics of abortion
Medicine, Health Care, and Philosophy, 2018
In this article I investigate the ways in which phenomenology could guide our views on the rights and/or wrongs of abortion. To my knowledge very few phenomenologists have directed their attention toward this issue, although quite a few have strived to better understand and articulate the strongly related themes of pregnancy and birth, most often in the context of feminist philosophy. After introducing the ethical and political contemporary debate concerning abortion, I introduce phenomenology in the context of medicine and the way phenomenologists have understood the human body to be lived and experienced by its owner. I then turn to the issue of pregnancy and discuss how the embryo or foetus could appear for us, particularly from the perspective of the pregnant woman, and what such showing up may mean from an ethical perspective. The way medical technology has changed the experience of pregnancy – for the pregnant woman as well as for the father and/or other close ones – is discussed, particularly the implementation of early obstetric ultra-sound screening and blood tests (NIPT) for Down’s syndrome and other medical defects. I conclude the article by suggesting that phenomenology can help us to negotiate an upper time limit for legal abortion and, also, provide ways to determine what embryo-foetus defects to look for and in which cases these should be looked upon as good reasons for performing an abortion. Keywords: ethics of abortion; phenomenology; lived body; pregnancy; obstetric ultrasound; quickening; NIPT