Date of Award
1-20-2025
Degree Type
Dissertation
Degree Name
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
Department
Education
First Advisor
Eilene Edejer
Second Advisor
Pamela Fenning
Abstract
In this dissertation, political, educational and feminist theories are intertwined to present m/othering as an educative practice and a revolutionary politics of love. Perspectives grounded in m/othering theories, practices and activism offer transformative visions of the future and connect the power inherent in our daily lives to the larger project of overcoming systems of domination. An invitation to pursue informal, liberatory educational practices in the mundane moments of everyday life, M/other Your Politics reframes power and repositions politics at the site of the interpersonal, offering a hopeful vision for the implementation of love as resistance. Set upon altering consciousness and therefore reality, m/othering is positioned as a framework within which embodying love becomes a relational way of being, a praxis, an everyday methodology for life and a politics. Highlighting the role of m/othering in the conscious development of generative power, critical consciousness and a revised socialization process focused on producing loving subjectivities, m/othering is posited as a possible political foundation for our futures, harnessing the commonly hidden, subjectivizing power of our relational encounters for the purpose of co-creating worlds in which it will be easier to love. An homage to the work of Paulo Freire, bell hooks and Alexis Pauline Gumbs, this dissertation presents the love we learn from m/others as a powerful, transformative force as humans intentionally shape change and co-create humanity’s next iterations.
Recommended Citation
Maddox, Shelley, "M/other Your Politics, a Praxis for the Next Iterations of Humanity" (2025). Dissertations. 4157.
https://ecommons.luc.edu/luc_diss/4157
