Translating Maternal Violence: The Discursive Construction of Maternal Filicide in 1970s Japan

by Alessandro Castellini

Overview

This book provides the first full-length, English-language investigation of the multiple and often contradictory ways in which mothers who kill their children were portrayed in 1970s Japan. It offers a snapshot of a historical and social moment when motherhood was being renegotiated, and maternal violence was disrupting norms of acceptable maternal behaviour. Drawing on a wide range of original archival materials, it explores three discursive sites where the image of the murderous mother assumed a distinctive visibility: media coverage of cases of maternal filicide; the rhetoric of a newly emerging women’s liberation movement known as ūman ribu; and fictional works by the Japanese writer Takahashi Takako. Using translation as a theoretical tool to decentre the West as the origin of (feminist) theorizations of the maternal, it enables a transnational dialogue for imagining mothers' potential for violence. This thought-provoking work will appeal to scholars of feminist theory, cultural studies and Japanese studies.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781349711611
Publisher:	Palgrave Macmillan UK
Publication date:	11/04/2020
Series:	Thinking Gender in Transnational Times
Edition description:	1st ed. 2017
Pages:	273
Product dimensions:	5.83(w) x 8.27(h) x 0.00(d)

About the Author

Alessandro Castellini is LSE Fellow in Transnational Gender Studies at the London School of Economics and Political Science, UK.

Table of Contents

Introduction.- Chapter 1.- Filicide in the media: news coverage of mothers who kill in 1970s Japan.- Chapter 2. The Women’s Liberation Movement in 1970s Japan.- Chapter 3. Contested meanings: mothers who kill and the rhetoric of ūman ribu.- Chapter 4. Filicide and maternal animosity in Takahashi Takako’s early fiction.- Conclusion.

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

“This groundbreaking work on the “unthinkable” phenomenon of maternal violence against children examines the ways postwar Japanese society tried to make sense of the social roles of women in a time of rapid change. Castellini incisively analyzes how the “dark side” of motherhood was represented in the press, in progressive women’s fiction, and in the Women’s Lib movement, illuminating the discursive struggle over the meaning of “woman” and “mother.” Theoretically sophisticated, based on intensive archival research, this study should be read by anyone interested in the history of motherhood in the post-WWII developed world.” (Sharalyn Orbaugh,Professor, Asian Studies, University of British Columbia)

“Translating Maternal Violence is an examination of maternal filicide in Japan in the 1970s, which opens up fascinating new perspectives on feminism, maternity, mental health, sexual violence.”(Imogen Tyler, Professor of Sociology, Lancaster University)