Mothers’ Hopes and Domestic Magic: White Racial Habitus and Fantasies of White Suburban Childhood
Year: 2022
Type: article
Abstract: This article is a collaborative ethnographic examination of the formation of white, middle‐class, suburban mothers’ subjectivities and mothers’ roles in the reproduction of racial inequity and structural violence. We focus on their affective labors transforming home spaces and suburban landscapes into white fantasies of childhood, which we describe as kind of domestic magic. We argue at the heart of this white racial habitus is the figure of the child and childhood. The child embodies mothers’ hopes for happy families and motivates their work and sacrifice. Our aim in this article is to show how racialized suffering and violence may not be reproduced by racial animus, neglect or ignorance but by seemingly innocuous hopes to make or conjure idyllic fantasies for children.
DOI: 10.1002/nad.12173
Author: Jong Bum Kwon
Institution: Webster University
Language: English
Subfield: Sociology and Political Science
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
SDG: Reduced inequalities
Open Access status: bronze
OpenAlex ID: W4312928933