[Commlist] Matrescence symposium -Call for abstracts

 Matrescence
 symposium | Call for abstracts

We
 invite abstracts for papers and/or panels to be presented at a 
one-day, hybrid symposium (online and at The University of Queensland, 
Brisbane City campus, Australia) on
Thursday 17 July 2025 exploring the broad theme of ‘matrescence’.

Matrescence
 – a term coined by medical anthropologist Dana Raphael in the 1970s – 
describes the period of becoming a mother. The term’s use signifies 
that, like the period of adolescence (the transition from childhood to 
adulthood), becoming a mother is an emotionally,
 socially, physiologically, spiritually, and politically complex 
experience that brings both transient and irreversible changes.

The
 notion of matrescence is gaining in popular attention among mothers 
and those working in the realm of maternal wellbeing, though the 
experiences of conception, pregnancy, labour, birth, and early maternity 
are sorely lacking in cultural and scholarly attention
 in the West. This silence has vast implications for maternal, infant, 
and family wellbeing but also much more broadly – socially, culturally, 
economically, and politically.

Public
 discourse around matrescence and early motherhood often centres the 
challenges or limiting factors of maternity and tends to pathologise or 
medicalise matrescence (focusing on phenomena such as postpartum 
depression and anxiety, for example). While illuminating
 the challenges of maternity is undoubtedly important, there is 
comparably little public discourse that explores the wider breadth of 
maternal experience and insights that can occur during the period of 
becoming a mother.

Some
 areas of feminist scholarship, especially since the 1970s, have given 
much attention to the position of the mother and maternity as well as 
the mother-child relationship. Adrienne Rich’s landmark book
Of
 Woman Born: Motherhood as Experience and Institution,
 for example,
draws
 an important distinction between the social, cultural, and political 
limitations placed on mothers by the ‘institution of motherhood’ and the 
expansive and positive potentialities of the experience of
mothering.
 Within Western philosophy, one of the most significant contributions 
of French poststructuralist feminist thought was the identification and 
criticism of the denigrated and silenced position of the mother in 
Western thought and culture. Key figures in this
 intellectual movement such as Luce Irigaray, Hélène Cixous, and Julia 
Kristeva have had a profound impact on feminist theorising and political 
movements by bringing the figure of the mother into view. Irigaray, for 
example, diagnosed the cultural ‘matricide’
 that, she claims, underpins Western philosophy and culture, and calls 
for it to be remedied through creating the conditions for the mother to 
be recognised as a speaking subject.

Building
 on this tradition, Michelle Boulous Walker’s Philosophy
 and the Maternal Body: Reading Silence
 – a key text on maternity and philosophy – interrogates the silencing 
of the feminine voice in Western thought and suggests new ways of 
articulating the maternal body and women’s experience of pregnancy and 
motherhood. Adrianna Cavarero’s
In
 Spite of Plato: A Feminist Rewriting of Ancient Philosophy
 draws philosophical attention specifically to the category of birth as 
a way of challenging and countering the disproportionate attention (both 
implicit and explicit) given to the category of death – on which, she 
argues, traditional Western philosophy has
 been based. There is growing philosophical interest in birth, 
demonstrated by an increasing number of titles, conferences, and 
symposia framed around this theme.


Angela
 Davis and bell hooks raise crucial questions relating to race and 
class in thinking philosophically about motherhood. bell hooks, in 
“Revolutionary Parenting” (Feminist
 theory: From Margin to Center
 [1984]), reminds us of the failures of some feminist thinkers to 
appreciate the intersections of race and class in their analyses – 
particularly relating to motherhood and work. For example, hooks notes 
that, in the mid- to late-twentieth century, feminist
 thinking on motherhood that demanded acknowledgement for housework and 
childcare actually alienated many working-class women and/or women of 
colour who found parenting an affirming interpersonal relationship as 
well as an escape from the world of alienating
 work in the labour market. Davis, in Women,
 Race and Class
 (1981), offers a similar critique of this problem and argues that 
rather than ‘Wages for Housework’ we should recognise the revolutionary 
potential of, for example, a universal basic income or subsidised public 
childcare.

Beyond
 the field of philosophy, there has been expanding scholarly interest 
in themes relating to maternity in what is often described as the broad 
field of maternal studies. Andrea O’Reilly’s work has been central to 
the development of this field and her work has
 informed scholarly interest in maternity and ‘matricentric feminism’ 
(in fields such as sociology, history, the arts, and economics) 
globally, including in Australia. O’Reilly also gives significant 
attention to the experiences of mothers in academia, especially
 in North America, providing frameworks to analyse the ways in which 
women’s experiences as scholars are shaped and limited by their 
experiences as mothers and
vice
 versa,
 drawing attention to structural factors underpinning these patterns. 
There is much less scholarship analysing these patterns in academic 
contexts outside North America.

Despite
 this scholarly interest in the themes of maternity and birth, there 
remains comparably little scholarship interrogating the
period
 of becoming
 a mother. However, we consider this phenomenon worthy of serious 
intellectual attention and suggest that its careful analysis can have 
broad philosophical, sociological, political, cultural, and economic 
implications.

The
 notion of matrescence introduces many complex questions for both 
theoretical and empirical inquiry. We are therefore calling for 
abstracts for papers and/or panels that explore these questions with the 
intention of inspiring new and renewed scholarly interest
 in the topics of matrescence and maternity.

We
 are especially interested in papers that explore this theme from 
within the Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences, though welcome papers 
from other disciplines as well as interdisciplinary research. Papers can 
follow a conventional academic format or be experimental
 or creative in expression. We hope this event will garner new 
connections and collaborations among both emerging and established 
scholars working in this area, and we aim to collate research presented 
at the symposium in a special issue of a Q1 journal.

Potential
 areas of consideration include but are not limited to:



    Matrescence and Australian
     universities – experiences of academics and students



    Matrescence and philosophy



    Matrescence and rewriting
     mother-child relations



    First Nations experiences
     of and perspectives on matrescence



    Decolonial perspectives
     on matrescence



    How matrescence is
     shaped by intersecting experiences of class, race, ability, 
sexuality, and other social and identity markers



    The devaluation of
     mothering, care, and reproductive labour in early motherhood



    Economic factors influencing
     matrescence, such as poverty, financial dependence, paid and 
unpaid parental leave, returning to paid work, experiences of formal and 
informal childcare, etc.



    Queer experiences
     of and perspectives on matrescence



    Phenomenology of matrescence



    Matrescence and the
     media



    Matrescence and technology



    Matrescence and infant
     loss



    Matrescence and adoption

Symposium
 details:

Thursday
 17 July 2025 | The University of Queensland, Brisbane City campus (308 
Queen St, Brisbane city) and online.

There
 will be no fee to attend the symposium.

We
 are happy to be able to provide two $200 travel bursaries to support 
HDR students and/or early-career/unwaged researchers to attend the 
symposium. Please indicate if you would like to be considered for a 
bursary when submitting your abstract and include a
 brief outline of why the bursary would be beneficial.

This
 symposium is supported by funding gratefully received by the 
Australian Women’s and Gender Studies Association (AWGSA).

Organising
 committee:
 Dr Belinda Eslick (The University of Queensland), Dr Fabiane Ramos 
(University of Southern Queensland), and Dr Laura Roberts (Flinders 
University)

Please
 submit a 200-word abstract and short bio by 17:00 (AEST) Tuesday 17 
June 2025 to:
(matrescence.symposium /at/ gmail.com)

Please
 also indicate whether you would like to attend online or in person, 
and if you would like to be considered for an HDR/ECR travel bursary.
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