Abstract

LOTTER, Casper. The phenomenon of maternal filicide reconsidered critically within a cross-cultural framework. Tydskr. geesteswet. [online]. 2024, vol.64, n.1, pp.110-128. ISSN 2224-7912.  http://dx.doi.org/10.17159/2224-7912/2024/v64n1a6.

In this contribution, I aim to make sense of the (somewhat) uncommon and disturbing phenomenon of maternal filicide within a broader context of the so-called neglected discourse of the mother in the West. Contemporary examples of countries where maternal filicide have been recorded are Germany, South Africa, the United States and New Zealand and these instances are recounted in the introduction to illustrate the cross-cultural and transnational nature of the problem, as well as the fact that its universal appearance allows for a justifiable feminist methodology. In order to justify a cross-cultural methodological angle, I analyse four recent examples or case studies of maternal filicide in an attempt to isolate the underlying factors contributing to this horrific social phenomenon. My conclusion is that although structural realities (material and/or emotional bereftness) were the major or ultimate reasons which led to the final decision to execute, it is (neoliberal) patriarchy, and the values ensconced within this framework, that ultimately set the stage for the countdown. Apart from my brief investigation of Kristeva's (2002b) notion of abjection, in order to grasp her thinking in the context of an especially Western feminist paradigm, I also consider other theoretical models in this regard. This is an important consideration since it is in my view difficult to understand the construct of motherhood without the benefit of a wider appreciation of a general scholarship on the topic. My intention is to critically assess the myths about the social construct of motherhood, namely that such construct is in no way "natural" in the sense in which patriarchy would have us believe. These additional theoretical suggestions include a feminist appreciation of the fractured mother-daughter relationship and Hrdy's (2000) insight that women's unbounded, prehistoric sexuality had been repurposed in order to refashion motherhood as "natural". In particular, I argue, by analogy of Blumberg's (2009) notion of freaks in evolutionary biology, that the social construct of motherhood and areas of exhaustion in such a biology, evince structural similarities; since patriarchal forms of oppression force women as mothers to operate outside the boundaries of conventional social norms. I tender these considerations with the aim of reaching a more nuanced understanding of the concept of motherhood's political and ideological underpinnings. As such, I employ a feminist methodology within a transnational theoretical framework in view of motherhood being a cross-cultural phenomenon. Even though a number of theoretical trajectories are considered and employed, I argue that this approach is in fact one of the strengths of this contribution since the proliferation of feminist theoretical perspectives has been seen as being conducive to the feminist project's open-endedness, rather than patriarchy's attempt to close off the debate, as my analogous exploration of the historical course of motherhood demonstrates. I argue that this phenomenon can only be understood properly within the wider context of motherhood as a cultural, political and ideological construct with nuanced and complicated underpinnings. In this way, an indirect approach is likely to show up insights which a direct method would miss or underappreciate. I reach the conclusion that maternal filicide, significantly even as transnational, cross-cultural phenomenon, finds credible explanation in Blumberg's (2009) concept of evolutionary exhaustion. I further argue that the neglect of discourse on the mother, as Kristeva (1982) presciently pointed out, is by design, since the alternative, its proliferation, could and almost certainly would lead to the demise of m/otherhood.

Keywords : discourse formation(s); feminism(s); motherhood; maternal filicide; caring; neglect.

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