BOUNDED LIBERATION

Abstract

Combining participant observation with in-depth interviewing, this small-scale, focused study examines the philosophies and practices promoted by La Leche League International (LLLI), the foremost international breast-feeding support organization. In particular, the study examines four linked conceptual paradoxes related to reconceptualizing women's bodies, validating motherhood, staying home, and living with baby, each representing an internal contradiction of liberation and constraint for League members. While LLLI's prescriptions for “good mothering through breast-feeding” may encourage women to reclaim their bodies, boost their sense of competence as mothers, and resist conventional authorities, at the the same time, the League's conception of what it means to be a good mother pushes women into socially prescribed and limiting roles rooted in biological determinism.