Mothering from the Field: The Impact of Motherhood on Site-Based Research

Product Description The heated national conversation about gender equality and women in the workforce is something that women in academia have been concerned with and writing about for at least a decade. Overall, the conversation has focused on identifying how women in general and mothers in particular fair in the academy as a whole, as well as offering tips on how to maximize success. Aside from a long-standing field-specific debate in anthropology, rare are the volumes focusing on the particulars of motherhood’s impacts on how scientific research is conducted, particularly when it comes to field research.  Mothering from the Field offers both a mosaic of perspectives from current women scientists’ experiences of conducting field research across a variety of sub-disciplines while raising children, and an analytical framework to understand how we can redefine methodological and theoretical contributions based on mothers’ experiences in order not just to promote healthier, more inclusive, nurturing, and supportive environments in physical, life, and social sciences, but also to revolutionize how we conceptualize research.   Review “Upending the common assumption that being a field researcher and mother are incompatible, this important volume not only provides insightful tips for merging parenthood and site-based research, but it also reveals the varied ways that caregiving for children can actually strengthen our connections in the field and provide a valuable lens for understanding and interpreting our data. Mothering from the Field is an indispensable resource for field researcher-mothers across the academy.” -- Shannon Elizabeth Bell ― field researcher-mother of two and author of Fighting King Coal"Mothering From the Field provides just the right mix of academic research on women in field- work-intensive fields, discussion of the institutional responsibilities of the academy, cautionary tales of the struggles of combining parenting and field work, and (to me) most importantly, practical 'can do' advice on how to do 'what needs to be done.'  I recommend taking this book and your kids (and a sturdy stroller) and going for it!" -- Rachel Connelly ― co-author of Professor Mommy: Finding Work-Family Balance in Academia"Selected New Books on Higher Education" compiled by Ki-Jana Deadwyler and Ruth Hammond  https://www.chronicle.com/article/Selected-New-Books-on-Higher/246666 ― Chronicle of Higher Education About the Author Bahiyyah M. Muhammad is an assistant professor in the department of sociology and criminology at Howard University in Washington, D.C.    Mélanie-Angela Neuilly is an associate professor in the department of criminal justice and criminology at Washington State University in Pullman.