Exploring the aesthetic experiences of childbirth through the 'fleshy' moments of pleasure and pain
Suvi Satama
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi-fe2021042718077
Tiivistelmä
This paper inquiries into the aesthetic experiences of childbirth; a "fleshy becoming" that disrupts disembodied and affectless images of organization. In this paper, I build on recent literature on organizational aesthetics and aesthetic experiences (e.g. Koivunen and Wennes 2011; Ropo and Sauer, 2008; Strati 1992; Taylor 2002; Warren 2008) in order to explore the versatile descriptions of navigating controversial expectations, conflicting ideals, fears, and ultimate joy and happiness attached to the moment of childbirth.
Surprisingly, the unique and multifaceted phenomenon of childbirth has remained a neglected aspect in social and organization studies despite of few exemplars (Chadwick and Foster 2012; Gatrell 2013; Malacrida and Boulton 2014; 2012; Warren and Brewis 2004). Drawing on eight personal stories of women who have recently become mothers and given birth for the first time, I discuss feelings of immerse excitement, passion, anxiety, extreme suffering and struggle inherently present on a journey of embodied transformation towards becoming mothers. In particular, I want to reflexively question and discuss the dominantly negative, even destructive assumptions about childbirth that flourish in the literature (e.g. Hager 2011). Embodying the simultaneous feelings of extreme joy and pain, I critically discuss how the women manage (or not) to balance between these controversial aesthetic experiences during and after the childbirth. 2
Taken together, I argue for more versatile approaches to aesthetic experiences ‘in all their complexity, materiality and ambiguity’ (Pullen and Rhodes 2015, 164). Besides bringing insights into discussions of the aesthetic, embodied and affective sides of contemporary organizations, this paper argues for deeper understandings of aesthetic experiences in organization studies.
Kokoelmat
- Rinnakkaistallenteet [19207]