Narratives of maternal emotions: Opening dialogue on working and breastfeeding in multicultural healthcare and working environments
Narratives of maternal emotions: Opening dialogue on working and breastfeeding in multicultural healthcare and working environments

Summary/Abstract: As the voice of medicine continually propagate the ‚breast is best’ discourse worldwide, in this article we lend our ears to the voices of mothers who struggle to breastfeed after returning to work. We analyse online discussions under the topic Working and breastfeeding on forums from France, Sweden and United States of America. The paper is organised around two strands of research aiming at a complex narrative analysis. Greimas’ narrative semiotics informs the insight into the narrative structure of the threads (posts and replies). The ‚emotional turn’ in geographies of maternal and child health illuminates our insight into the narrative substance of the forum discussions. Essentially, the actantial analysis reveals maternal emotions against different cultural, healthcare and working backgrounds, with mothers struggling for the same object, namely breastfeeding after returning to work. Looking through the lens of Hofstede’s cultural dimensions, our underlying aim is to map maternal feeling across different cultures and to reflect on cross-cultural understanding of maternal emotions that may open dialogue in multicultural healthcare and working environments.

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