Resumen de La mare (des)mereixedora? realitats viscudes, temporalitats crítiques i relacions de suport social de mares en situació de pobresa a la gran bretanya de l’època de l’austeritat
This doctoral dissertation is an in-depth study of the lived realities and social support for mothers experiencing deprivation poverty during austerity-era Britain. In 2008, the United Kingdom experienced an economic crisis which was the result, in part, of the failure of global financial institutions. The government urged that the only way out of the crisis was to implement economic policies of austerity, which was an aggressive contracting of state support for socially supportive services, driven by narratives of deservingness and welfare conditionality. Austerity has been exceedingly detrimental for low-income communities, and when taking into consideration the intersection of gender, and family status, profoundly negative effects have been observed. This dissertation examines how economically uncertain mothers in the North West of England experience their daily lives in times of national, local and personal economic crisis.
Based upon ethnographic field work in two charitable organisations, this dissertation explores themes of gendered notions of deservingness, relationality, and temporalities. In using these lenses, the dissertation considers how narratives of worthiness influence the provision of supportive services, and altogether impact the formation of relationships among mothers, and between mothers and service providers. It was also observed that there is a dissonance between how organisations perceive mothers’ time use and mothers’ personal experience of their temporalities; this tension, partially originating from narratives of deservingness, is observed in institutional norms to which mothers’ must acquiesce.
The findings in this dissertation bring forward power dynamics between mothers (as clients) and charitable organisations (as service providers) based upon organisations’ perceptions of mothers’ temporalities and worthiness. Nevertheless, mothers cooperate and display behaviours of distributive agency among themselves, which helps to ensure everyone can access essential instrumental, informational and emotional support. However, the mothers have to assume the behaviours of a good, deserving mother to make ends meet.
Considering the experiences of economically uncertain mothers in regard to deservingness, relationality, and temporality advances an understanding of the lived realities of some of the most disadvantaged and formally unsupported women in times of economic crisis. The research herein presents a novel intersection in which to view a causality for maintaining a cycle of poverty for mothers. The themes examined in this dissertation, despite how social dynamics and power structures are rapidly changing due to the global pandemic, will continue to be relevant for social researchers for generations to come.
