The Social Organization of Mothering Work for a First Nations Mother

• Main Author: Ingstrup, Andrea
• Other Authors: Rankin, Janet
• Format: Master Thesis
• Language: English
• Published: Graduate Studies 2014
• Subjects: Nursing; Canada; First Nations; inuit; Metis
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/11023/1242; https://doi.org/10.11575/PRISM/28380

Abstract The research described in this thesis investigated the social organization of First Nations (1) mothering as it arose within the ongoing historical and contemporary sequences of events in which mothering work is embedded. The aim of this research is to gain an understanding of how the everyday activities of mothers unfold, what mothers do by looking at the happenings in the daily routines of mothers who are situated within the socio-economic-political position of a First Nations mother. I examined parenting using Institutional Ethnography as a method of inquiry to reveal how activities in the everyday world are socially organized through relations of ruling with professionals, agencies, institutions and the written or spoken communication or discourse, to uncover how those activities arose as supportive of women to develop relationships with their children. This research reveals how programs despite best intentions contribute to relationship disconnection and frustration that these mothers encounter in trying to meet authorized program expectations and professional judgments. 1 As in the report of the Royal Commission on Aboriginal People (Government of Canada, 2006), for the purpose of this research the term First Nations is the reference to indigenous peoples of Canada that are not Metis or Inuit but may fall under the umbrella term Aboriginal people.