Legacies of Political Motherhood in Argentina and Sri Lanka

Political motherhood is a form of women’s political mobilisation in which women represent themselves as mothers. Motherhood is often portrayed as socially conservative, but there are instances where motherhood has contributed to progressive causes often in an initially clandestine manner that takes political opponents by surprise. This book presents a feminist historiography of the well-known Madres (Mothers) of the Plaza de Mayo from Argentina and the lesser-known Mothers’ Front from Sri Lanka. It preserves ordinary women’s contributions to peace as part of feminist scholarship and offers lessons learned regarding women’s peace movements in difficult political environments. In a wave of global far-right extremism that seeks to confine women into wifely–maternal roles in the private sphere, subversive motherhood as used by ordinary women as a critical avenue to peace that is widely accessible, appealing and covert enough to allow for under-the-radar progress.