The ethical case of maternal relationality: a new turn in care ethics:

This project seeks to reconnect care ethics to its starting point, without falling into the same pitfalls of the 1980s, but taking into account the lessons learned from the political turn in the 1990s. The early 1980s ideologies of motherhood in care ethics should not be uncritically embraced, rather the lessons learned in political care ethics should be applied to analyze practices of mothering / parenting by focusing upon the many ways in which care is distributed, assigned, expected, or coerced upon people in underprivileged positions. For this, I draw upon Joan Tronto’s concepts of ‘privileged irresponsibility’ (1993, p. 146) and ‘passes’ (2013, p. 70vv) that excuse certain groups of people to do caring work. The objective is to extend this idea to the analysis of the positions of people involved in pregnancy, labor and childcare. For this I also develop a renewed thinking of critical insights from care ethics such as maternal thinking (Ruddick 1989), embodied care (Hamington 2004, 2011, 2015), dependency in care work for children with disability (Kittay 1999, 2019), self-sacrifice in care and self-understanding (Van Nistelrooij 2015), the role of ‘love’ and ‘compassion’ in care (Van Heijst 2005, 2011), attentive listening & epistemic justice (Bourgault 2016, 2020), and decentered, postcolonial care ethics (Dalmiya 2016).

These strands of care ethics have been elaborated in my work up till this point. In one of my latest publications (Van Nistelrooij 2022) I suggest to extend Tronto’s definition of ‘care’ by adding the concept of ‘becoming’ that acknowledges relationality as working in two ways. In caring, I argue, those involved are deeply relationally intertwined in a double, dialogical process of becoming. Whether in pregnancy, labor, breastfeeding, and in child-rearing after birth, adoption, family formation of any kind, in relational care identities of generations unfold. Dialogical Self Theory (DST) offers methodological tools for analyzing the external and internal dialogues that reflect the transformational processes of becoming a deeply relational self. I have, however, not yet succeeded in bringing these projects and concepts together in one coherent publication. A coherent, comprehensive elaboration of a 21^st century connection between care ethics, maternal theory and DST would provide the groundwork for present and future research on ‘maternity & care’, the transformations that maternal caregivers experience and the impact of their contexts in the political and moral sense.

I aim to create a book on ‘Maternity & Care’ during my stay at Brocher in 2024. This book serves several objectives:

• to reconnect care ethics to its roots in maternal thinking, in a way that meets the insights and requirements of 1990s political care ethics;
• to draw upon the Dialogical Self Theory to analyze external and internal dialogues in which the relational transformations of ‘becoming mother/parent’ take place;
• to lay the groundworks for the interdisciplinary field of ‘Maternity & Care’ that serves scholars in various fields (see targeted audience);
• to inspire MA, ReMa, and PhD students in care ethics, philosophy (of self), maternal theory, midwifery, sociology, theology, medical and health care humanities;
• to inspire professionals in health care, medical care, obstetrics, midwifery, spiritual counseling, and policy making (e.g. regarding maternity care for so-called ‘vulnerable’ groups, like migrant, illiterate, low socio-economic status, single, or teenage women).

The intended book will be published by 2025. At first, attempts will be made to have the book published by renowned publishers of care ethics and DST books, like Cambridge University Press or Oxford University Press, Routledge, or Minnesota University Press. If unsuccessful, the book is a perfect fit for the book series ‘ethics of care’ by Peeters Publishers in Leuven. 

A relational ethical approach towards respectful maternity care for student training in obstetrics: An interdisciplinary response to the public health challenge of obstetric violence

To achieve our goals the following objectives are identified:
To study, discuss and write up how innovative alternative pedagogical practices can promote ethical caring through socially just behaviours in obstetrics.
To publish one article on our combined efforts collectively drawing on our past and current individual research projects and pedagogical practices.
To bring along our collected literature, study it together, and complement it with the latest information provided by experts from the WHO in Geneva.
The intention of this south-north project is to cross-pollinate ideas to experiment with alternative modes of transforming academia, including new forms of scholarship.
Our collaborative research will be firmly rooted in our expertise in care ethics and pedagogy, which we use to relook at student responsibility, response-ability, competence, being rendered capable, attentiveness and trust, by drawing from care ethics. Exchanging ideas and networking with others at the Brocher Foundation and WHO in Geneva will support and inspire our discussions and writing. We plan to bring new insights using our research data, e.g. of a present study into violence from a feminist and Foucauldian perspective.  We aim to create a teaching video together which will be linked to our texts. In this video we will demonstrate how a relational approach to ethics as compared to an individualistic ethics, is able to break through repressive structures of thought.