Haecceity of Becoming-Mother: A Diffractive Analysis of Babywearing Through a Global Pandemic

Abstract

This paper problematizes notions of good/bad mothering by putting to work Deleuze and Guattari’s haecceity. Focusing on babywearing, it presents an autoethnography of my experiences of becoming-mother during the Covid-19 pandemic. Using diffractive analysis, I analyze the entanglement of my experiences of babywearing, research diaries, images/selfies, the regulations introduced during the pandemic, and the “global cultural script” of being a good mother. It works toward a position of (k)not knowing, being open to the unknown. Under the lens of haecceity, becoming-mother is “thisness”—a middle, knotting, and unknotting, ever emergent.