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REFRACTED SELVES? A STUDY OF CHANGES IN SELF-IDENTITY IN THE TRANSITION TO MOTHERHOOD

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 April 2001

LUCY BAILEY
LUCY BAILEY
Affiliation:
Department of Sociology, University of Bristol, 12 Woodland Road, Bristol, BS8 1UQ, England
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Abstract

Drawing on data from a study of middle-class women undergoing the transition to motherhood, this paper critically examines the early 1990s' work of Giddens and Beck on self-identity. Parallels with the work of Giddens and Beck are drawn, but it is argued that more attention needs to be paid to gendered and embodied identity. Using discourse analysis, it is suggested that the women are ‘excused’ from aspects of their identity in the process of pregnancy, but remain within the same regime of subjectification. Six dimensions of an altered sense of self are identified, and the discourses on which the women draw in maintaining a coherent sense of self are discussed. The concept of a refracted self is proposed as a means of theorising these changes.

Keywords

the bodydiscoursethe fractured selfgendermotherhoodself-identity
Type
Research Article
Information
Sociology , Volume 33 , Issue 2 , May 1999 , pp. 335 - 352
Copyright
1999 BSA Publications Ltd

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