UQ hosts conference about marginalised mothers

Mothers’ Day is just around the corner but an upcoming conference at UQ next week will be looking at more than what gifts mums want.

The Mothers at the Margins conference will be held from April 27 to 30 and will explore the key issues facing mothers who are marginalised.

Organisers Professor Carole Ferrier and Dr Marie Porter, from UQ’s School of English, Media Studies and Art History, said one of the issues being looked at was the marginalisation some mothers experience when they are from different cultures with approaches to birthing and mothering different from the more accepted norms.

“Other mothers at the margins include those who have children with disabilities, issues relating to adoption or post-natal depression for example,” they said.

Dr Porter said the conference was the Sixth International Conference on Motherhood to be held in Australia and would feature Associate Professor Andrea O’Reilly, one of the world’s leading motherhood researchers and activists.

“She is internationally recognised as the leading academic researcher in the area of maternal studies,” Dr Porter said.

“Her address is entitled ‘Maternal Activism as Matricentric Feminism: The History, Ideological Frameworks, Political Strategies and Activist Practices of the 21st Century Motherhood Movement’.

“This conference promises to be as stimulating, informative, successful and congenial as the previous such Australian conferences have been.”

Other keynote speakers include Professor Debra Creedy, from UQ’s Queensland Centre for Mothers & Babies, and Sonya Andermahr, from the University of Northampton.

More than 60 papers from both Australian and international scholars and from all levels of Academia will be presented.

For further information visit http://www.uq.edu.au/emsah/index.html?page=148584&pid=20349, or www.uq.edu.au/mothering

Media: Dr Marie Porter 0421 031 485 or Professor Carole Ferrier 3870 8885.