(Re)birthing the maternal

Secor, Anna J.

Abstract

The aim of this essay is to explore the political and ethical potential of (re)birthing through Barad’s conceptualisation of transmateriality. This article puts Barad’s thought on entanglement, emergence, and responsibility into conversation with other work in feminist philosophy and psychoanalysis that has grappled with questions of the maternal, birthing, and ethics. On the one hand, this encounter suggests that there are other ways of posing questions of separation, responsibility, and power through the maternal that might challenge aspects of Barad’s telling. But at the same time, by bringing Barad’s thought into these conversations, I show how Barad’s transpositions of (re)birthing have the potential to radically re-open and trans*figure feminist ethics and politics via a more dispersed, immoderate, and ultimately queer perspective on how the ethics that inheres in the coming into (non)being of the world.

Citation

Secor, A. J. (2023). (Re)birthing the maternal. Transpositiones, 2(1), 77-92. https://doi.org/10.14220/trns.2023.2.1.77

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Online Publication Date: Apr 30, 2023
• Publication Date: 2023-04
• Deposit Date: May 22, 2023
• Publicly Available Date: May 22, 2023
• Journal: Transpositiones
• Print ISSN: 2749-4128
• Electronic ISSN: 2749-4136
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 2
• Issue: 1
• Pages: 77-92
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.14220/trns.2023.2.1.77
• Public URL: https://durham-repository.worktribe.com/output/1174668