Gendered Island Futures: generational perspectives on motherhood and change in the Faroe Islands
as written by Nanna Schneidermann for the DFF Sapere Aude grant spring 2022
Introduction
Gendered Island Futures studies gender and social change in island communities by taking motherhood as a lens for investigating a changing Faroese society, and by building analytical frameworks that recognize mothering roles and practices in producing and reproducing individual and collective futures.
The Faroe Islands is an archipelago with just over 50.000 inhabitants. Family is highly valued and kinship is child-centric (Gaini 2012). While recent research has explored gender and fatherhood in island life (Gaini 2020), the experiences of women in the production of continuity and change remains largely unexplored (Jacobsen 2017, 6). In her seminal work on motherhood, Rich (1976, 13) distinguishes between Motherhood as an institution and identity and Mothering as the potential relationship between a woman and her reproductive powers and her, children. This project takes up this distinction by investigating both images of motherhood and practices of mothering. It adds a temporal dimension to Rich’s framework by developing what I propose as a “generational approach”. It adds a spatial dimension by taking inspiration from recent feminist research (Karides 2017) to examine “islandness” as an aspect of gendered identities. Investigating motherhood and mothering through the perspectives of three generations of Faroe Islanders, the project contributes new knowledge about the role of gender and kinship in processes of social change in island life.
The project aims to establish island gender studies as a field of scientific inquiry in the Danish kingdom, by advancing knowledge that supports sustainable gender equality in small-scale societies.
It does so by creating a team of leading, international scholars and Faroese stakeholders, and developing a generational approach, using ethnographic, experimental and digital methods.
The research questions are:
State of the art
Policies towards reproduction and gender in the Faroe Islands have historically been restrictive and shaped by Christian conservatism (Hansen 2014, van Kersbergen and Lindberg 2015). Recently, however, there is an increased focus on women and gender equality in policy debates (Javnaðarflokkurin 2020) and in heated public debates about same sex marriages, parenthood and legislation that bans abortion (Vestergård 2017). Recent research suggests that transformations are afoot in relations between gender and migration reproductive matters, and labor market participation (Knudsen 2016, Ísfeld 2019, Hayfield 2020). Yet, motherhood is often seen as a naturalized aspect of female personhood and women are valued as primary caregivers to children and families (Knudsen 2016). Fertility rates are relatively high with a 2.4 child average and 30% of women work only part time (Hayfield 2020, 114).
Despite motherhood being a central underlying theme in politically contested issues about the future of Faroese society, it has not been directly tackled as a unit of analysis. This research project analyses transformations in imaginaries of motherhood and experiences of mothering in the Faroe Islands as a lens through which to understand social change in island life.
In so doing, the study opens up a new analytical territory between the anthropology of mothering and the emergent field of island gender studies. Motherhood was introduced as a topic of inquiry in feminist anthropology (Kitzinger 1978) and studies of reproduction (Ginsburg and Rapp 1991, 1995, Inhorn and Birenbaum-Carmeli 2008). The anthropology of mothering (Walks 2011), has demonstrated motherhood as crucial to both to biological and socio-cultural reproduction, by investigating diverse practices of mothering as a kind of cultural production (Barlow and Chapin 2010, Colen 1995) as well as the maternal as a site of interventions towards engineering the future society (Pentecost and Ross, 2019).
In the field of Island Studies, Karides notes that there is a remarkable dearth of research on how “island societies construct and are shaped by gender and sexuality” (Karides 2017, 30). To mitigate this, “islandness” must be part of the analysis of gender, as a constantly negotiated relation between islands as physical places and the figures of thought attached to such places (Gaini and Pristed Nielsen 2020, 3, Baldacchino, 2004, 278). Within the Danish kingdom, there is a growing interest in indigenous understandings of gender and how these have historically been shaped by colonialism and Danish governance in Greenland (Arnfred and Pedersen 2015, Williamson 2011) and in the West Indies (Simonsen 2017), but not yet in the Faroe Islands. Research on the self-governing island communities in the Nordic countries, however, shows how gendered dimensions of migration, religion, education and the labor market are shaped by both the circumscribed geographic location and the relation with the state of which they are part (Hayfield, Olavson and Patursson 2016, Hagmark-Cooper 2016). With a focus on motherhood and islandness, this project contributes new knowledge about how place, dependencies and autonomy in sub-national island jurisdictions shape imaginaries and experiences of gender and reproduction over time.
Theoretical frame and key concepts
This project investigates perspectives on social change in the Faroe Islands from the vantage point of motherhood, drawing on images and experiences of mothering across three generations. The overall RQs are centered by three analytical themes:
First, the project investigates how images of motherhood present and future have changed over the past three generations, with a particular focus on how images are mediated through digital technologies. Further developing recent research that has focused on health interventions (Schneidermann 2020), digitized reproductive citizenship (Lupton 2016), or social media as sites of mothering identities (Schneidermann, forthcoming), this research examines how new digital possibilities and connections take shape and become meaningful in the Faroese context.
Secondly, Gendered Island Futures will analyze a diversity of experiences and practices of mothering in the Faroe Islands, thus broadening the scope of island gender studies. There is an urgent need to find new ways to conceptualize the intersection of islandness with gender, sexuality, race, nation and class (Karides 2017, 31). While gender in Faroese public discourses is often articulated as binary, naturalized categories, the project sees gender as socially constructed and enacted along other intersecting dimensions of inequalities (Collins 1994). But without the added dimension of kinship, the analysis misses what Gaini terms “family capital” and the “child-centric family” (Gaini 2012, 2013, 3). This project will expand the theoretical framework of intersectional islands studies by bringing motherhood in the Faroe Islands to the center of the analysis.
Thirdly, imaginaries of the future are central to this approach. The project will explore how narratives and practices of mothering resonate social continuity and change over generations. Social imaginaries frame the realm of possibilities and actions towards anticipated futures (Vigh 2006, 483, Crapanzano 2004). The project seeks to understand the how islandness shapes the relationship between social and biological reproduction in the “moral laboratories” (Mattingly 2014) of everyday life. This will capture different perspectives on changing imaginaries of motherhood and experiences of mothering and add a temporal dimension to the intersectional analysis of islandness.
The study
The study is organized in three work-packages (WPs) that each contribute a significant empirical perspective on the overall RQs. All researchers are likely to contribute to each of the WPs, but are assigned to take lead on one WP.
WP 1: Images of motherhood and practices of mothering (led by PI, 3 months of fieldwork with PhD J. Djuurhus, 12 months of fieldwork)
WP 1 focuses on RQ 1 and 2 and investigates the relationship between images of motherhood and practices of mothering in relation to gendered dimensions of migration, religion, health, education and the labour market in island life. In particular, attention is given to mothering as moral laboratories (Mattingly 2014) that shape ideas of the future of the Faroes islands by projecting images of “the good life” onto the next generation. Through the generational approach to studying motherhood, the WP builds data that traces social transformations across generations but also different perspectives and positions in kin- and social networks. This will be combined with research on images and imaginaries of motherhood in personal and public realms, by doing research with personal photo archives, like photo albums or home videos, through photo elicitation (Vium 2018) as well as with digital platforms, apps and other devices that increasingly assist, shape - or distract - practices of mothering and “motherwork” (Collins 1994). The PI will carry out fieldwork in the smaller town Klaksvik in the northern islands and the PhD-student in the metropolitan area around Thorshavn.
WP 2: Otherwise motherhoods (led by Postdoc T. Hermannsdottir, 3 months of fieldwork)
The postdoc in the study will lead the second WP focusing on RQs 1 + 3 on contested or “otherwise” paths towards motherhood. While motherhood is often naturalized, induced abortion is not legal, and assisted reproduction is only available abroad. Both cases have become symbols of failed reproductive citizenship (Lupton 2012) and demand navigating local moral landscapes (Hermannsdóttir, forthcoming). Such contested reproductive citizenship in the Faroes also include LBTQI+ motherhood and disability motherhood (van Kersbergen and Lindberg 2015). The WP will examine imaginaries and experiences of otherwise forms of motherhood over three generations, and relate these with how actors in the Faroes engage with global transformations where reproductive politics have become markers for larger, political changes in society (Briggs 2017).
WP 3: Male perspectives on motherhood (led by co-investigator F. Gaini, 1 month of fieldwork)
The third WP contributes to RQ 1 + 4 and adds male perspective to questions about gender futures in the Faroe Islands by investigating three generations of men’s images and experiences with motherhood. Though men are active participants in women’s reproductive lives, male voices and perspectives are left out in most studies of mothering or reproduction (Inhorn et al 2009). The project co-investigator extends long-term fieldwork about masculinities and fatherhood among Faroese men (Gaini 2006, 2020) to perspectives on motherhood and masculine carework in Faroese families.
Methodology: a generational approach to gender island futures
Gendered Island Futures is anchored in a shared generational approach to the study of gender in the Faroe Islands. I draw on Whyte, Alber and van der Geest who define generation as “relations in time” and distinguish between generation in the passive and in the active sense (Whyte, Alber and van der Geest 2008, 1). Generation in the passive sense is that which is generated; “groups and categories of people belonging to a certain period of time” (ibid 3), while generation in the active sense means “the act of generating, creativity, agency” (ibid). With a shared methodological approach that embraces this twofold meaning of generation each WP contributes critical perspectives to the overall RQs.
Linked life trajectory interviews
The descriptive side of the generational approach means building extended cases (Burawoy 1998) of gendered perspectives on motherhood past and future across three generations. Using narrative interview techniques (Atkinson 1998) and kinship charts, each researcher will interview 10 participants, who will help the researcher identify 3-5 of those whose lives they are linked to, for “linked life” interviews (Bjerrum Nielsen 2017). This could be partners, kin, caregivers or friends. This provides empirical evidence of changes in mothering and imaginaries of gender futures from different generational and gendered perspectives, as well as comparative material across the WPs.
Participant observation and digital ethnography
The second shared approach uses participant observation (Bernard 2017) to examine how lives are linked in the Faroes, and how these practices of connection have changed and are envisaged in the future. Where female kin and kitchen table conversations were once the site for seeking information and solving problems related to motherhood (Gullestad 1984), Instagram, Google or Facebook groups are now also sites of collective knowledge. All researchers in the project examine how digital media shape relations between islandness and motherhood in their respective field sites through online and offline digital ethnography (Pink et al 2016) This means participation on social media platforms, recording the use of apps and digital tools in mothering practices, from period tracking apps to children’s use of technology (Miller et al 2021, 80).
Generating conversations and perspectives
The third shared methodology is generational in the active sense: seeking to generate new perspectives on motherhood in the Faroes. The project develops three experimental “fieldwork devices” (Criado and Estalella 2018, 17) – creating venues of knowledge production in collaboration with our counterparts in the field. 1) Participation in image-production about motherhood through social media platforms used by Faroese parents, like Facebook and Instagram. 2) Production of 8 podcast episodes based on the WPs in collaboration with Kingvarp Føroya (The Faroese Broadcast Corporation). Radio remains fundamental in Faroese public culture (Leonard 2016), and the programs “device” ways for the Faroese public to reflect on and contribute their own perspectives on motherhood, change and the future. 2) Six thematic workshops in collaborations with Faroese organisations working with issues of gender and parenthood, including the council of gender equality, the gynaecological section of the National Hospital, Kvinnufelagið (the Women’s Assocation), the sexual health project KYN, and the family health unit, Gignið.
Ethical issues
Informed verbal and written consent will be obtained with all research participants, and additional releases will be used for audio-visual or online material which cannot be anonymized. However, procedural research ethics are not adequate when working with collaborative methods and potentially sensitive topics in a small-scale society. Culturally sensitive, situational ethics are necessary (AAA 2012) and since the researchers are all Faroese, the possibly multi-layered connections between researchers and participants have further ethical implications (Hayfield 2021). Special attention must be paid to dynamics of recruitment, settings for meeting participants and confidentiality. Anonymisation in publications includes strategies of changing demographic and personal traits or aspects of individual histories to protect interlocutors (Nespor 2000, Yim and Schwartz-Shea, 2021). In the first phase of the project, ethical clearance from the School of Culture and Society will be obtained, and ethical training will be part of the quarterly project seminars.
Project organization and management
As PI, I use my previous experience with research on motherhood, gender and digital media to develop this new field around motherhood and gender island studies in the kingdom of Denmark. The project draws together my international networks into a research group. My Faroese heritage and management experience will ensure the integration of all stakeholders, and deliver the project at the highest academic standards. The Aarhus University confirms that I will be assessed for an associate professorship before the commencement of the project. I will be responsible for WP 1, for the supervision the PhD student, as well as the coordination of the overall project.
Co-investigator (F. Gaini) is responsible for WP 3 and is highly qualified to act in a supporting role, and co-supervisor of the PhD, with an extensive research record focusing on gender, intergenerational relations and masculinities in the Faroe Islands. J. Djuurhus will join the project as a PhD student connected to WP1, building on research experience on morality and parenthood in the Faroe Islands. Postdoctoral researcher T. Hermannsdottir will be responsible for WP 2 on otherwise motherhoods, extending previous work on stigmatized reproductive matters and island life.
As a strategy to ensure research excellence, the project collaborates with an advisory board consisting of leading scholars, who will advise on specific issues in the kick-off workshop and quarterly hybrid seminars, and act as key collaborators, mentors during junior researchers’ international research stays. M. Karides, U. of Hawaii will advise on theoretical perspectives on island feminism. H. Pristed Nielsen, Aalborg Univ. will support ethics training on fieldwork in small-scale society. F. Ross Univ. of Cape Town brings expertise on postcolonial perspectives on reproduction. Cheryl Mattingly, USC, adds theoretical perspectives on morality of motherhood, and Daniel Miller, UCL, advises the project on digital ethnography in relation to motherhood and island life.
The project period is three years staring from March 2023 and has three phases: Project Development and Fieldwork, Analysis and Data Processing, Writing and Publication (see time plan). An initial workshop with advisors and local stakeholders will launch the project and allow for a detailed planning of the study. Within the first 4 months, a data management plan, ethical clearance and training will be obtained. Quarterly, hybrid project seminars will be held throughout the project to ensure timely progress and continuous reflection on ethical, methodological and analytical issues. At the end of year 2, the University of the Faroe Islands, Aarhus University and the Gender Equlity Commission in the Faroe Islands jointly hosts a three-day conference for researchers, practitioners and the Faroese public, with panels, public talks, and artistic contributions, to solidify collaborations with international and local colleagues. The last phase of the project focuses on the timely completion and publication of the research, and exploration towards new research projects.
Outcomes, deliverables and future research
Outcome of the project is theoretical and methodological innovation that establishes research on islands and gender studies in a Danish research context based on the project’s generational approach.
It will develop a research group centered on kinship, gender and social transformation in island societies, with the capacity to scale up collaboration towards Scandinavian or European contexts, for instance in a EU consolidator grant. Further, it strengthens links between research and policy-making in areas of gender and reproductive health and builds an increased focus on women’s contribution to societal development in the Faroe Islands in public debates. The project achieves these outcomes through a dissemination strategy that targets academic audiences, Faroese practitioners and policy-makers, and the Faroese public.
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