How Non-Heteronormative Mothers Negotiate Meaning: Experiencing and Contextualizing “Invisibility”

Magdalena Wojciechowska

doi:10.18778/1733-8077.16.4.09

Authors

Magdalena Wojciechowska University of Lodz, Poland https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6375-422X

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.18778/1733-8077.16.4.09

Keywords:

Non-Heteronormative Motherhood in Poland, Making Meaning, Symbolic Interactionism

Abstract

This article aims to shed light on how non-heteronormative mothers—whose child had been conceived via artificial insemination of one of them with the sperm of an anonymous donor— decode, experience, and make meaning of diverse (symbolic) dimensions of their social invisibility, as well as how their understandings of the category at hand have an impact on projecting and negotiating their roles as mothers (especially in case of those women who did not give birth to their children). Drawing on specific examples from the field, I analyze how—while acting within the context of anxiety exemplifying their non-existing legal status—non-heteronormative mothers construct the image of self against the backdrop of no ready-made role scripts available, as well as strive towards making oneself (socially) visible. The insights at hand are based on data collected during my six-year ethnographic study of planned non-heteronormative motherhood in Poland, where same-sex relationships are not legally recognized.

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Author Biography

Magdalena Wojciechowska, University of Lodz, Poland

Magdalena Wojciechowska, Ph.D., is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Sociology of Organization and Management, Institute of Sociology, Faculty of Economics and Sociology, University of Lodz. Her research interests lie in studies of members of marginalized social groups.

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