Amanda D. Watson

Dr. Amanda D. Watson's research interests include care, labour, social reproduction, disability, climate crisis, media representation of maternal labour and identity, and feminist pedagogy. She teaches on politics of family, global problems and the culture of capitalism, and power and conflict in Canadian society. Watson is an Associate Member of the Department of Gender, Sexuality, and Women's Studies. She serves on the editorial board of Gender & Society.

Current projects include Politics of Birthstrike, exploring how young adults reconcile their desires for ethical family life with resurging population control initiatives to reduce their climate footprint by having fewer children; Imagine Kin Project, investigating how young adults talk about their future relations in the context of interlocking crises; and Politics of Social Justice Parenting, new research exploring the experiences of parents of young children through pandemic closures and trends in parenting.

PhD (Feminist and Gender Studies), University of Ottawa
MSW, Carleton University
BA (Sociology), University of British Columbia

Care; labour; social reproduction; affect theory; reproductive justice; disability; feminist media studies; climate anxiety; kinship

Book

• The Juggling Mother: Coming Undone in the Age of Anxiety. Vancouver, BC: UBC Press (2020).

Edited Collections

• "Social Work, Motherhood, and Mothering: Critical Feminist Perspectives" with Diane Fierheller, Erin Kuri, May Friedman, Andrea O’Reilly, Journal of the Motherhood Initiative (2022).
• "What is Intersectional about Intersectionality Now?" with Corinne Mason, Atlantis: Critical Studies in Gender, Culture, & Social Justice, 38.1 (2017).

Book Chapters

• “The Juggling Mother” in Maternal Theory: Essential Readings, 2^nd Edition. Toronto, ON: Demeter Press (2021).
• “Usually the mother: Dilation and the medical management of intersex children," with Celeste Orr in From Band-Aids to Scalpels: Motherhood Experiences in/of Medicine. Toronto: Demeter Press (2021).
• “Feminist Politics still needs motherhood” in Troubling Motherhood: (Re)Conceptualizing Maternity and the State in Global Politics, Past and Present and Future (181-196). Oxford: Oxford University Press (2020).
• “We changed her nappies, we saw that she was a girl: Caster Semenya’s femininity and the power of maternal testimony” with Celeste Orr in Mothering, Mothers, and Sport: Experiences, Representations, Resistances (15-48). Toronto: Demeter Press (2018).
• “How to get through the day with pain and sadness: An investigation of temporality and disability” with Shoshana Magnet in Disability Media Studies: Media, Popular Culture, and the Meanings of Disability (247-271). New York: New York University Press (2017).

Refereed Journal Articles

• “Quelling anxiety as intimate work: Maternal responsibility to eliminate bad feelings emerging from precarity,” Studies in Social Justice, 10(2). Brock University: Social Justice Research Institute (2017).
• “Of suspected cheats and ‘super-crips’: Gender, Race, and Class at the Olympic Games,” with Heather Hillsburg and Lori Chambers, Global Citizenship and Equity. (2015).
• “The power of the first hour: Is there a transnational breastfeeding crisis?” with Corinne Mason, International Journal of Feminist Politics, Taylor & Francis Online (2015).
• Technovisibilités et risque : politique du scanner corporel (Technovisibilities and risk: New manoeuvres with full-body scanners), with Shoshana Magnet, POLI—Politique de l’image (2015).
• “Discipline, resistance, solace and the body,” with Christine Gervais, Religions, 5(1): 277-303. (2014).

• 2022 Excellence in Teaching Award in Online and Blended Education

• 2021-23 Principal Investigator, Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) Insight Development Grant, "Politics of Birthstrike".

• “Not my choice: A TV anchor is ousted and viewers ask why,” quoted in New York Times, 30 Aug 2022
• “Grey Matters: LaFlamme exit ignites conversation on workplace sexism and ageism,” Toronto Star’s This Matters, 25 Aug 2022.
• “Anger as Lisa LaFlamme dropped as Canada TV anchor after going grey,” Guardian, 19 Aug 2022
• “Could four-day-workweeks take off in BC?” Radio interviews, CBC The Early Edition, 6 Jun 2022.
• “Mom burnout,” Radio interview, CBC Radio West, 4 May 2022.
• “The Motherload: Why mums are leaving the workplace,” Radio interview, CBC On the Coast, 3 May 2022
• “After two years in the pandemic, mothers expressing rage are harnessing their power,” Opinion, 8 Mar 2022, Conversation, Tyee.
• “The Juggling Mother,” Video interview, Telus Talks, 11 Jan 2022.
  
• “The Mother Load: COVID-19 created a crisis of care and working mothers bore the burden,” quoted by Stephanie Nolen, 28 Jul 2021,
• “The anxiety of the supermom nearly broke me,” book excerpted, Today’s Parent, 2 Dec 2020.
• “Society has come to expect the juggling act,” Opinion, Globe and Mail, 20 Nov 2020.
• “2020 proved that women’s hard earned place is shakier than we thought,” quoted by Marie-Danielle Smith, Maclean’s, 17 Nov 2020.
• “The juggling mother has dropped the ball," quoted by Jenn Wint, 17 Nov 2020.
• “Pandemic mothering,” Television, CTV News, 5 Oct 2020.
• “Working mothers feeling the impacts of COVID,” Radio, News1130, 23 Sept 2020.

Dr. Watson's role and FASS News article on FASS modernizes online learning (Sept 2019)