Loving fathers, relationships, care and support: exploring love in the everyday geographies of fathering

Menzel, Alice Emmeline ORCID: 0000-0002-9360-7869 (2019). Loving fathers, relationships, care and support: exploring love in the everyday geographies of fathering. University of Birmingham. M.Res.

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Abstract

Seeking to contribute to the as yet heavily underdeveloped geographic scholarship on fathering and responding to calls for critical interrogations of love within Geography (Morrison et al., 2012), this thesis is concerned with exploring how fathers construct and perform love in and across everyday spaces. It draws upon data gathered via an intensive mixed-method qualitative research project utilising a melding of narrative and ethnographic methods which captured everyday experiences of father-child relationships, conducted over January-May 2018 with a small cohort of six fathers in Birmingham (UK). Focusing on how these fathers ‘do’ love through everyday spatial practices/interactions, this research furthers current academic understandings of contemporary fathering relationships and parenting practices. It offers exploratory insight into the everyday geographies through which fathers care for, build/maintain intimate relationships and ‘do’ love, particularly through examination of the various geographies embroiled within their provision of intimate care, emotional support, playfulness and imparting moralities. Through examination of these and informed by literatures (in and beyond geography) on parenting, fathering especially, intimacy/care, and masculinities, I ultimately demonstrate and develop a critical thesis of the spatiality of love as it is performed in everyday contemporary fathering geographies.

Type of Work:

Thesis (Masters by Research > M.Res.)

Award Type:

Masters by Research > M.Res.

Supervisor(s):