Research

As a structural violence scholar, my research focuses on the interplay between motherhood, labor, and social policy with a concentration in feminist theory. I examine the impact of different ontological constructions of mothers on social policy within a social reproduction and feminist symbolic interactionist theoretical framework. My work contributes to policy studies and work-family research, feminist theories of violence, and overarching feminist debates on the maternal.

My research agenda centers on social control and reproduction. How are specific ideas of “mother” used to devalue reproductive and caring labor? What has been proposed in the past and will need revisited in the future to elevate social reproductive labor to a position of social power? The last six years have seen women and gender issues rise to the forefront on both the U.S. and global political stage. From the COVID-19 pandemic highlighting the weakness of the U.S. care infrastructure to the overturn of Roe v. Wade, we are seeing old discourses surface as well as resistances fomented by women around the world. As fraught as this historical moment is, it is an exciting time to examine emerging case studies that encapsulate these tensions.

My doctoral research presents one such socio-historical case study: The 2010 social policy reforms of the “Kansas Experiment.” The “Kansas Experiment” refers to the 2011-2017 administration of Governor Sam Brownback and his comprehensive policy reforms. These tax and social policy reforms were intended as prototypes to be replicated in other states with republican administrations. Building from the late twentieth century American work-based welfare policies, this new wave of welfare reforms continues to obscure structural causes of maternal impoverishment and the social control of their social reproductive labor. In-depth sociological research notes the relationship between increasing demands for low-cost care work alongside decreasing social support for care labor. In exploring this relationship, I found that the political discourse around these reforms exhibits striking parallels to the fear of low-income women institutionalized through the Great Witch Hunts of Western Europe in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries as articulated by Silvia Federici in her iconic work, Caliban and the Witch. To illuminate this “absent history,” this project includes historical-discourse analysis, structural event analysis, and interviews with both women’s advocates and welfare recipients. These data sources are triangulated to provide a depth of contextual understanding regarding the ontological origins of this discourse surrounding women and how it is mobilized for political support of contemporary welfare reforms.

My first article from this project, “Welfare at (the) Stake: The Kansas Experiment’s attack on low-income mothers,” was recently published in the Journal of Gender Studies.  In this article, I present a historical-discourse analysis of the Kansas Hope, Opportunity, and Prosperity for Everyone Act of 2015 (Hope Act), a central policy of Brownback’s reforms. The Hope Act mobilized a  discriminatory discourse surrounding women that paralleled language targeting low-income women during the Great European Witch Hunts. Drawing on the theory of affective economies by Sara Ahmed, I argue that contemporary welfare reforms are neo-witch hunts based on the accumulated political power of closely associating and continually employing the repertoire of the witch and welfare recipient. Using this discriminatory rhetoric as political currency ensures that the social reproductive labor of women at all socio-economic levels are subject to patriarchal state control.

Prior to the release of this article, I had the opportunity to interview Silvia Federici herself. Along with Dr. Selina Gallo-Cruz, we engaged Federici in an in-depth conversation on her reflections on the human experiences that have shaped her scholarship, the continuities of capitalist discipline observed in her early advocacy, and how she makes sense of today’s compounding global crises. The full interviews is available in Capitalism Nature Socialism.

Future research will build from the work of notable scholars such as Silvia Federici, Maria Mies, and Mary Douglas to explore the connection between mothering, social policy, and experiences of structural violence. We can understand that institutions do not think for themselves, but historical moments provide moment of alignment between analogies and structural authority that legitimizes specific social patterns. As I poke at these structures, I am left with Douglas’ remaining question: “What are the impossible thoughts”?

Warmly,

Ren Morton