After birth : abjection and maternal subjectivity in Svea Josephy's Confinement

[摘要] ENGLISH ABSTRACT: In this thesis I investigate the radical reframing of maternal representation in the photographic series by Cape Town-based artist Svea Josephy (b. 1969), entitled Confinement 2005-ongoing. Using Julia Kristeva's theorisation of the maternal body's relation to abjection, as well as its imperative to the remodelling of the relationship between the corporeal and the cultural, I explore how Josephy's images explicitly engage with the Kristevan abject in order to disrupt cultural inscriptions of maternity and 'motherhood'. I contend that Confinement situates Josephy's experience of 'becoming-mother' against the dominant discourses of maternity and birth, and thereby uses the maternal subject as a means to interrogate broader issues of gender and identity.

[发布机构] Stellenbosch University