Södertörn Doctoral Dissertations Care to live

What are the everyday life strategies of single mothers that help to effectivelycope with daily hardships? What modes of resistance are employed,articulated or imagined by single mothers as they navigate their dailyroutines?This is the premise of the study that offers an in-depth ethnographic studyof well-educated single mothers in Kaunas, Lithuania - a post-socialistsemi-periphery marked by structural precarity. Through feminist activistethnography, this thesis examines how single mothers develop material,emotional, and social strategies to survive and care within conditionsshaped by neoliberalism, insufficient welfare systems, and societal stigma.The concept of care is placed at the centre of this dissertation, highlightingcare labour as often unpaid and invisibilized, yet - central to single mothers'lives, constituting both a burden and a potential site of resistance. This thesisalso examines how normative ideals of family, motherhood, and successintersect with class, gender, and labour to shape women's lived experiences.

Pagina's: 240, Editie: Eerste editie, Paperback, Södertörn University