‘And then I undress the work’: Materiality and embodied identity work among professional mothers

Abstract

How do professional mothers whose bodies undergo significant transformations engage with materiality – such as clothing, makeup and their own bodies – as active ‘resources’ when navigating their identities after maternity leave? Building on the literature on embodied identity work, we conducted 31 interviews with professional mothers in Finland to explore this question. We illustrate how mothers engage with the body and material objects to shape identities while being shaped by the agentic, symbolic and affective power of materiality. We emphasise the agency of materialities, such as aching flesh, affective makeup and everyday materiality, not only in shaping the body’s surface but also in influencing the sense of self. The identity of professional mothers is thus reconfigured through the dynamic interplay of agential flesh, objects and sociocultural forces. We contribute to discussions on the agency of materiality in embodied identity work by theorising its stigmatised, ‘fleshy’ aspects and emphasising matters ‘out of place’ and ‘out of control’, alongside bodily dysfunctions that often remain unspoken. We additionally illustrate how motherhood may facilitate subtle micro-resistance to normative expectations, thereby allowing women to challenge dominant views of their professions and organisations as rational, disembodied and fleshless – where materiality is treated as discursive rather than lived.