Research

Research clusters

Mothers & Work

• Sarah Arnold
• Anne O’Brien
• Marian Crowley-Henry 
• Eglė Kačkutė
• Daiva Skučienė

MotherNet Aims of the Working Group: develop collaborative research in the area of mothers and work 

Activities / Progress:

1) Presenting as a panel for the Motherhood and Work: An Interdisciplinary Conference at Maynooth University on June 24^th and 25^th, 2021.

2) Reading chapters of the book Women, Inequality and Media Work.
O’ Brien, A. (2019) Women, Inequality and Media Work. London & New York: Routledge to be discussed in relation to all of our individual research projects.

Negotiating Childlessness

• Julie Rodgers
• Jenny Björklund
• Linara Bartkuvienė
• Dagnė Beržaitė
• Mercedes Carbayo Abengozar
• Margaretha Fahlgren
• Dovilė Kuzminskaitė
• Lynsey Kavanagh
• Maria Sebastià Sáez
• Lina Šumskaitė

MotherNet Aims of the Working Group: produce a special issue or a book on the topic of negotiating childlessness.  

Activities / Progress:

So far literature on voluntary/involuntary childlessness has been reviewed focusing specifically on the boundaries of and the shift from one form of childlessness to another. The movies Private life (2018), What we wanted (2020), and the documentary of the project Lunàdigas have been watched and the representations of involuntary childlessness in them discussed. Currently the group members consider what kind of material they can use for individual articles planning.

Lone Mothers

• Ciara Bradley
• Mercedes Carbayo-Abengozar  
• Helena Wahlström Henriksson
• Violeta Gevorgianienė
• Eglė Šumskienė
• Greta Skubiejūtė
• Daiva Skučienė
• Gloria Kirwan
• Fergus Ryan
• Anne O’Brien
• Kathryn McGarry
• Lina Šumskaitė

MotherNet Aims of the Working Group: produce a special issue or a book on the topic of lone motherhood across our three countries/ more broadly.

Activities / Progress:

The group started to discuss the idea to work together on a special issue. We discussed an interdisciplinary project with articles from across the various fields that we work in and also with the aim of creating opportunities for us to write together across the three universities and across our disciplines.  

Mothers and Sex Work

• Irma Kondrataitė
• Kathryn McGarry

MotherNet Aims of the Working Group: produce a joint article on mothering and sex work in variuos countries.

The aims of this working group is to collaborate on our shared interests regarding mothering, marginalization and sex work with a view to jointly writing a journal article (s), potentially presenting our work in upcoming research conferences.

Mothers of Preterm Newborns

• Rūta Morkūnienė
• Diana Ramašauskaitė
• Sara Sylvén
• Evelina Sabaitytė
• Rūta Einikytė
• Atėnė Mendelytė
• Eglė Kačkutė-Hagan

MotherNet Aims of the Working Group: develop a collaborative research project.

Activities / Progress:

This interdisciplinary research project combines the knowledge and expertise of researchers from medicine, psychology, philosophy, and philology, providing the knowledge for locally novel studies of medical narratives and medical humanities on the subjective experiences of mothers of preterm babies. The research study was granted with approval from the Lithuanian Bioethics Committee and will start collecting data by the end of 2023. The research aims to improve perinatal care and prepare recommendations for psychosocial support for mothers and families of preterm infants.

The group of scientists is currently working on a literature review and developing the final questionnaire for preterm newborn mothers regarding their psychological status, maternal attachment difficulties, perceived stress, social support, and preterm birth experience and satisfaction.

Migrant Mothers

• Inga Hilbig
• Eglė Kačkutė
• Vitalija Kazlauskienė

MotherNet Aims of the Working Group:  Produce a joint article on the interplay of non-harmonious bilingualism in the Lithuanian diaspora and the Lithuanian motherhood script. The working title is The impact of the Lithuanian motherhood script on migrant mothers’ subjective well-being in situations of non-harmonious bilingualism

Activities / Progress:

We are intensively working on the first draft of the article that will be submitted for Frontiers in Psychology research topic Social and Affective Domain in Home Language Development and Maintenance Research by the end of 2023.

In the frame of cooperation Inga Hilbig and Vitalija Kazlauskienė have made 4 presentations at various international scientific conferences, and 2 more are planned. One presentation was made in a Maynooth University School of Modern Languages, Literatures and Cultures on-line seminar, and it was followed up by an interesting discussion. Based on the findings, Inga Hilbig has also made a scientific dissemination presentation for a Lithuanian migrant mothers community “Tarp 2 šalių”. To see it, follow the link below (in Lithuanian).

Political Motherhood/Maternal Activism

• Ciara Bradley
• Lina Šumskaite
• Daiva Skučienė
• Ieva Bisigirskaitė
• Anne O’Brien

Activities / Progress:

The cluster met for the first time on October 4^th with Ciara Bradley, Lina Šumskaite, Daiva Skučienė and Ieva Bisigirskaitė. Anne O’Brien has also expressed her interest in participating in our cluster. The cluster discussed some cases of maternal activism in both Ireland and Lithuania and found possible directions for comparative work. However, given the limited time left for the network, the cluster decided to focus on two things. As Ieva Bisigirskaitė plan to write about cases of maternal activism in Lithuania as part of her research project, the other participants kindly agreed to provide feedback on her work in progress. In addition, Lina and Ieva Bisigirskaitė agreed to write an introductory article on different cases of maternal activism in Lithuania. The cluster’s next meeting will take place on the 21^st November.

Myths of Good and Bad Mothers

• Eglė Kačkutė
• Mercedes Carbayo-Abengozar
• Jules Kielmann
• Rūta Šlapkauskaitė
• Eglė Šumskienė
• Sarah Arnold
• Maja Bodin
• Dovilė Kuzminskaitė
• Valerie Heffernan
• Sigrid Schottenius Cullhed
• Jenny Björklund

Cluster aim is to explore the myths of good and bad mothers across various narratives, examining how these archetypes are constructed and challenged in different contexts and narratives.

Activities / Progress:

• Conference in Uppsala in October 2022
• Series of article-writing workshops to consolidate and disseminate our research findings on this theme.
• Publication of articles addressing critical themes such as maternal ambivalence and societal stigmatization of non-traditional motherhood roles