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    A question of ethics : a responsibility to care : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in Psychology at Massey University, Palmerston North, New Zealand
    (Massey University, 2008) Rogerson, Ann
    This thesis draws upon both traditional and feminist care literature as well as psychoanalytic theory to inform a reading practice that addresses the following questions: How does a feminist ethics of care represent the best interests of women? Feminist literature theorises the context of knowledge production as a discursive site where the capacity for care within mother and daughter relationships can only be represented within historically patriarchal cultural prescriptions. In this context the representation of an 'ethics of care' continues to be theorised within the paradigm of a nuclear family setting and a liberal knowledge based economy (KBE). How are women's best interests to be interpreted within this theoretical framework? The reading practice draws upon the feminist psychoanalytic writings of Luce Irigaray to consider a woman's responsibility to care, the significance of mother/daughter relationships and a feminist ethics of care within a contemporary global economy that places a greater emphasis on home care, amid the changing face of traditional families and an increasing 'presence' of women within the public domain.
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    "Me and Mum" : New Zealand adolescent daughters' stories of their relationships with their mothers : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Philosophy in Education at Massey University
    (Massey University, 2001) Nicholls, Andrea Jane
    Adolescent daughters' perceptions of their relationship with their mothers were examined using a social constructionist approach, which identified two conflicting discourses regarding adolescence and the parent-adolescent relationship. The recent academic discourse emphasises the continuing importance of strong bonds between parents and adolescents, particularly between mothers and daughters. The popular culture discourse emphasises separation from and conflict with parents in adolescence, particularly between mothers and daughters. Ten adolescent girls aged between 15 and 17 were interviewed using the Adult Attachment Interview (AAI: George, Kaplan & Main, 1996) to investigate which of these discourses they subscribed to. A narrative approach was used to identify individual relationship themes and cross-narrative themes of agency and communion. These themes were very similar to those found in other comparable research, both national and international. New findings included the influence of the following contexts upon daughters' perceptions: their childhood relationship with their mother, significant events in their lives, their childhood and current relationship with their father, and cognitive maturation. Two groups of five were identified within the ten participants, distinguished by their ability to reflect on their relationship, their perception of their mother, and the amount of reciprocity in their relationship. Overall, the emphasis on mothers' continuing support and availability in daughters' narratives challenged popular culture's emphasis on separation and conflict in parent-adolescent relationships, particularly between mothers and daughters.
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    Transforming feminist care ethics : tracing (un)memorable mother-daughter relations through psychoanalytic inquiry : thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirement for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Psychology, Massey University, Manawatu Campus, New Zealand
    (Massey University, 2014) Rogerson, Ann Lois
    This thesis draws upon traditional and feminist theories of psychoanalysis, and embarks upon a journey of inquiry initiated by a personal experience of end-of-life care for my mother. Positioned as responsible caregiver, I found myself unable to articulate my experiences as anything other than caregiver-patient who suffered a combination of ‘exhaustion and grief’ leading to hallucination manifesting as hysterical symptom. The constraints on positioning available to me generated the following question as the catalyst for present study. How can mother and daughter relations be spoken within contemporary discourse and how is care positioned in relation to mother-daughter encounter? The inquiry begins with a critical reading of contemporary literature on mothering, care and caring to locate the study within a genealogy of feminist engagement with ethics of care. After situating both feminist care ethics and hysteria within the trajectory of psychoanalytic development, I explore Lacan’s rereading of Freud’s mapping of the unconscious, pre-conscious and conscious as the initial theoretical framework for inquiry, given that this is where hysteria linguistically intertwines with psychoanalysis as a product of caregiving stress. Within the genre of searching, I follow a series of journeys, investigating texts for gaps and pathways enabling a mother-daughter encounter to be remembered and spoken differently. Each journey informs and transforms the problematics of remembering and articulating mother-daughter encounter. Yet they reiterate constrictions at the place where perception meets thought, and each journey is hindered by a metaphorical wall of language. After discussing how the wall locates mother-daughter encounter and care within discourse and shapes reality as a constant series of assimilating, marginalising and discriminating I extend the scope of inquiry through reading feminist theorists of difference including Irigaray’s concepts of mimesis and fluidity, Ettinger’s matrixial borderspace and Braidotti’s nomadic subject. This allows a rereading of feminist care ethics and possibilities of transformations, where theorising a more inclusive grammatical structure can be thought as enabling possibilities for speaking, writing and remembering women’s encounters with women and a daughter’s encounter with her mother.
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    Discourses of grief : the death of the mother : a thesis presented in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy
    (Massey University, 1999) Manderson, Daphne Anne
    This purpose of this study was to explore the grief of daughters on the death of their mothers. I interviewed fifteen women. This study draws on feminist post-structuralist insights into subjectivity as constructed in the interplay, and between socially available discourses. I identified three interrelated and co-existing discourses through which the metadiscourse of grief arose. These discourses were continuity, discontinuity and silencing. Two distinct patternings of the discourses were identified within the corpus of the text, and these seemed to be shaped primarily by the age of the woman when her mother died. These discourses are considered and collated within the social/historical context in which medical and psychological notions of grief have been hegemonic, and other subordinated and lay discourses are emerging. I suggest the understanding of oneself as a daughter in grief changes over time. The women interviewed in this study showed a 'desire' not to 'get over it' and disconnect, but to incorporate a continuing bond with the mother. How this is achieved is explained.