Feminists anthropologists have long fought against idealized discourses of the “good” mother based on traditional, White, middle-class, heterosexual values. Extensive participant-observation, in-depth interviews with twenty-one mothers and focus groups with a total of sixty-four mothers incarcerated in a large, urban county jail in North Carolina revealed marginalized women’s pathways to incarceration via trauma (particularly physical/sexual violence beginning in childhood) and its sequela (e.g., substance abuse, sex work, abusive partners) within a context of scarce resources. This research sought to illuminate how such events have shaped women’s motherhood experiences, definitions of “good” mothers, self-definitions as mothers, and motherhood goals. Incarcerated mothers in this study both accepted and resisted hegemonic discourses of “good” mothering by simultaneously retaining and redefining motherhood in adverse circumstances in ways that can be best understood through the model of motherhood that I label the “struggling good mother.” Specific service and policy recommendations are offered that address ways to ameliorate the structural inequalities that prevent marginalized women’s ability to access basic resources needed to break the seemingly endless cycle of trauma, its consequences, and incarceration in the lives of incarcerated mothers and their children.

中文翻译：

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“苦苦挣扎的好母亲”：边缘化、创伤和人际暴力在被监禁妇女的母亲经历和目标中的作用

女权主义人类学家长期以来一直反对基于传统、白人、中产阶级、异性恋价值观的“好”母亲的理想化话语。广泛的参与者观察、对 21 名母亲的深入访谈以及对 64 名被监禁在北卡罗来纳州一座大型城市县监狱中的母亲的焦点小组，揭示了边缘化妇女因创伤（尤其是身体/性暴力）而被监禁的途径在资源稀缺的情况下开始）及其后遗症（例如，药物滥用、性工作、虐待伴侣）。这项研究试图阐明这些事件如何塑造了女性的母亲经历、“好”母亲的定义、母亲的自我定义以及母亲的目标。本研究中被监禁的母亲接受和抵制“好”母亲的霸权话语，同时在不利的情况下保留和重新定义母亲身份，这种方式可以通过我称之为“挣扎的好母亲”的母亲模式得到最好的理解。提供了具体的服务和政策建议，以解决如何改善结构性不平等，这些不平等阻止边缘化妇女获得所需的基本资源，以打破看似无休止的创伤循环，其后果以及被监禁的母亲及其子女的生活中的监禁。