Docile Bodies: The Regulation of Sexuality and Reproduction.

This paper demonstrates the regulation of women's pregnant bodies through and by discourses of care. It illustrates how present practices reflect those of slavery where the dressing of the body, styling of the hair, and dancing, communicated gender difference that complicated sexual difference. 1 The presentation explores the body as material, fleshy, changing, and regulated. It demonstrates that even when motherhood is seen as a social construct, there is a sexual attachment to certain practices of mothering (such as pregnancy and breastfeeding) that speaks to its materiality which intersect with the ideological aspect of motherhood. Michel Foucault argues that the social actor is a mere body, and power is exercised upon individuals as bodies are categorized, trained in procedures, and placed in hierarchies. The body therefore becomes docile through its ability to learn, and to internalize discourses that regulate thoughts and behaviors. Using the narratives of ten CARICOM mothers residing in Barbados, this paper unpacks the body politic of motherhood, noting specifically how motherhood operates as institution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]