ABSTRACT

My aim in this book has been to discuss some of the dangers inherent in what have become commonplace and common-sense understandings of motherhood, of daughterhood and of selfhood. Throughout it, I have considered the ways in which the mother-daughter relationship is enmeshed in relations of power/knowledge. I want to end the book by considering the ways in which resistance is built into those relations. This is not an attempt at a heroic saga from darkness to light – from the darkness of power to the light of resistance. Rather, it is an attempt, firstly, to explore the very concept of resistance in this context, and, secondly, to make some tentative suggestions for alternative ways of understanding the mother-daughter relationship.