| In the risk society of the early 21st Century United States, there are heightened demands on individuals to be increasingly responsible for the potential, and actual, outcomes of the choices they must make in their everyday lives. Not all populations experience the heightened demands in the same ways. Mothers living in this society are additionally burdened, beyond the responsibility of their own individual well-being, with the responsibility of risk-assessing choices they must make regarding the safety and well-being of their children. They are held responsible for the life of another.;Drawing on the data collected over two years of ethnographic field work researching a group of mothers, the "eco-mamas", in a small mid-western community, this paper explores the strategies these mothers use, given the ultimate responsibility that they feel, to gain a participatory role in making choices about the care of their children within a risk society. The analysis takes place at the macro and micro levels using both the theories of risk society and feminist standpoint theory. |
