perForming the maternal: spaces and practices for sensitive pedagogy

Abstract

The contribution offers a critical reading of the imagery produced around the maternal figure and her 'natural' vocation for care work. Through the studies of feminist thought and of difference and phenomenological ones (Braidotti; Irigaray; Zambrano) the essay is an opportunity to look at the maternal body as a device to be returned to its plastic nature to regain possession of spaces of education to feel and practice of Care of self and of the other. In this theoretical context, the paper traces the work carried out in a nursery school in the Forcella district of Naples, involving a small group of mothers and their children in an initial intervention of education in communication and the care relationship through the introduction of embodied practices.