Beverley Skeggs’ landmark text Formations of Class and Gender was at the forefront of identifying how gendered and classed subjectivities are produced. This work changed the landscape of sociology, and it continues to open up opportunities for sociologists to consider how intersectional privileges and oppressions are instrumental in subjectivity construction.
Building on Skeggs’ legacy, this article considers how women experiencing homelessness navigate the shifting and complex dynamics of this field in the construction of mothering subjectivities. Drawing on qualitative research conducted in Australia that explored women’s experiences of homelessness and pregnancy, this article discusses how mothering subjectivities are generated through constructed notions of the ‘good’ mother and the barriers mothers face in both enacting these discourses and in meeting the high moral standards of ‘good’ mothering without adequate resources and structural supports. We explore how, in an effort to overcome internalised shame and questions of respectability, they actively contest the negative associations which call into question their moral standing as good mothers by engaging in forms of invisible labour.
By expanding on Skeggs’ theoretical framework, this article challenges hegemonic concepts of homelessness that neglect alternative subjectivities, and instead explores the processes and practices that are shaped by social positioning to reveal the punitive consequences and transformative possibilities involved in becoming a mother while homeless.
