Performing maternities: During and after COVID-19: Part 1

Abstract

This editorial shows and argues that multiple experiences of experiencing maternity across the world during the global pandemic can be mediated, expressed and accessed through notions and practices of performativity. In collecting the diversity of artistic, poetic and critical expressions in this edition, the editors have simultaneously opened a window on intimate parental experiences during lockdown and provided a space to make political those experiences. It establishes the key debates and approaches of the contributors, mapping how the articles work together providing critical/creative responses to notions of and experiences with maternities during the pandemic. In this sense, both journal edition and editorial participate in the feminist rhetorical re-calibration of ‘ethos’ as collaborative co-construction of meaning between speaker and listener, artist and viewer, writer and reader.