Social Policy, Sociology and Social Research

 

profile image for Dr Charlotte Faircloth

Dr Charlotte Faircloth

Leverhulme Trust, Early Career Fellow

School of Social Policy, Sociology and Social Research

 

 

I am a Leverhulme Trust, Early Career Fellow, at the University of Kent’s School of Social Policy, Sociology and Social Research.

I am interested in cultures of parenting; notions of body, gender and equality in care-giving and its implication for other relationships; and more broadly in knowledge claims around optimal forms of care.

I am working on three-year a project entitled ‘Parenting: Gender, Intimacy and Equality’. The research seeks to explore how couples combine advice around childcare with their own career decisions – that is, who does what caring, when, and why?

Career

I was Mildred Blaxter post-doctoral Research Fellow with the Foundation for the Sociology of Health and Illness, during which I completed my book ‘Militant Lactivism? Infant Care and Maternal Identity Work in the UK and France’, which is in press with Berghahn Books.

Education

I completed my PhD at the Department of Social Anthropology, University of Cambridge, which explored women’s experiences of attachment parenting and “full-term” breastfeeding in London and Paris.

Find me:

On Twitter
On Academia 


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  • Faircloth, C. Hoffman, D and Layne, L. (Eds). Forthcoming Parenting in Global Perspective: Negotiating ideologies of kinship, self and politics (Forthcoming in the Routledge, Relationships and Resources series)
  • Faircloth, C. Forthcoming. ‘Militant Lactivism? Infant Care and Maternal Identity Work in the UK and France Oxford and New York: Berghahn Books (in press). 
  • Faircloth, C. 2011. ‘It feels right in my heart: Affect as accountability in narratives of attachment.’ The Sociological Review Volume 59, Issue 2, pages 283–302, May.
  • Faircloth, C. and Lee, E. 2010. Introduction. Sociological Research Online Special Section on ‘Changing Parenting Culture’ (co-editor of issue with Dr. Ellie Lee) Vol 15, Issue 4.
  • Faircloth, C. 2010 ‘What science says is best: Parenting practices, scientific authority and maternal identity.’ Sociological Research Online Special Section on ‘Changing Parenting Culture’. Vol 15, Issue 4.
  • Faircloth, C. 2010. ‘If they want to risk the health and well-being of their child, that’s up to them’: Long-term breastfeeding, risk and maternal identity.’ Heath, Risk and Society Special Issue: ‘Child-rearing in an Age of Risk.’ 12: 4, 357 367 
  • Faircloth, C. 2009. ‘‘Culture means nothing to me’: Thoughts on nature/culture in narratives of ‘full-term’ breastfeeding.’ Cambridge Anthropology. Vol. 28, No.2. 63-85.
  • Faircloth, C. 2009. ‘Mothering as identity-work: Long-term breastfeeding and intensive motherhood.’ Anthropology News. Vol. 50. Issue 2. pp. 15-17.

Online 

  • Faircloth, C. and Lee, E. 2011. Breastfeeding: An enduring doctrine. Spiked. 12th December 2011.
  • Faircloth, C. 2011. ‘Positioning’ The Junket Issue 1 October 2011.
  • Lee, E. and Faircloth, C. 2011. ‘Giving women ‘constrained choice’ not real choice. The spiked Review of Books. Issue 42. (February).
  • Faircloth, C. 2010. ‘The trials and tribulations of the ‘perfect mother’.’ The spiked Review of Books. Issue 33. (March). 
  • Faircloth, C. 2007 ‘Expression management: Infant feeding and maternal anxiety.’ ESRC ‘Battle in Print’. London: Institute of Ideas.
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Research interests

My doctoral work looked at women’s experiences of “full-term” breastfeeding and attachment parenting in London and Paris, with a focus on questions of kinship, identity and the new “parenting culture”.

More broadly, my work explores notions of body, gender and equality in care-giving, and has a theoretical focus on accountability and the constitution of knowledge claims.

Following a Mildred Blaxter post-doctoral fellowship from the Foundation for the Sociology of Health and Illness, my book ‘Militant Lactivism? Infant Care and Maternal Identity Work in the UK and France' will published by Berghahn Books.

Current

I commenced a three-year Leverhulme Trust Early Career Fellowship in May 2011, based at the University of Kent, looking at “Parenting: Gender, Intimacy and Equality”.


 


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Current

I teach sessions on the MA module The Family, Parenting Culture and Parenting Policy and the undergraduate module Gender, Work and the Family: Exploring the Work-Life Balance.

I am also a visiting lecturer at the University of Cambridge, lecturing on two undergraduate papers: Gender, Kinship and Care and The Family in PPSIS/Social Anthropology.


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Memberships

  • Member of the Anthropology of Britain Network, Association of Social Anthropologists of the UK and Commonwealth.
  • Member of the Council for Anthropology and Reproduction, Society of Medical Anthropology, The American Anthropological Association.
  • Member of the Centre for Parenting Culture Studies.
  • Member of FiLo (Fieldwork in London Network).

Editorial

  •  Reviewer, Anthropology Matters, Agenda, Maternal and Child Nutrition, The Sociological Review journals.


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Websites of interest in this field:

 

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Telephone: +44(0)1227 823072 Fax: +44(0)1227 827005 or email us

SSPSSR, Faculty of Social Sciences, Cornwallis North East, University of Kent, Canterbury, Kent CT2 7NF

Last Updated: 07/02/2013