Collective residencies / Negotiating Non-Motherhood / Olot
LINA ŠUMSKAITĖ, ONLINE
From Monday, 14 March 2022 to Friday, 18 March 2022
Bio
She defended her dissertation in sociology in 2014 entitled Fathering Practices of Men. She currently is a lecturer at Vilnius University in the Social Policy and Social Work programs. Her research interests include fathering and mothering practices, procreational intentions, and qualitative studies on childlessness.
Project
I will analyse non-motherhood as a process in woman’s life, when decisions about having/not having children or thoughts about children appear not once, but many times in life. Previous scholarship has explored how women’s autonomy in decision making about having/not having children can shift over the course of life (Letherby 1994, 1999; Myers 2001; Safer 1996). This sociological analysis is based on 12 semi-structured qualitative interviews with single and coupled highly qualified Lithuanian women (aged 28–47), mainly living in big cities, who do not have children for various reasons.