Beyond Critique: Returning to the Maternal through Vulnerability

Critical awareness of how social locations and normative frameworks shape maternal realities has led feminist discussions to gradually withdraw from looking for any constant formation of the maternal that might connect different maternal experiences in different social settings. This paper suggests that implying a theory of vulnerability to the theorization of the maternal may provide a critical perspective concerning the influence of power formations and institutionalized injustices on maternal realities, while also theorizing the shared ontological, ethical, and political aspects of the maternal. This study draws on vulnerability theory to offer an account of maternal affective relations with the child, in which commitment and becoming are intertwined. I argue that the maternal is a relational space in which the desires for life of both the child and mother are entangled through and by the mother’s responsive commitment to the child’s vulnerability.