# Unruly Care: Maternal Ambivalence and the Politics of Stigma in Semple’s Where'd You Go, Bernadette
> Rane Z.A.

URL kanonis: https://discover.unhas.ac.id/publications/pub_scopus_105051267277
Jurnal / Konferensi: Theory and Practice in Language Studies
Tahun terbit: 2026
DOI: https://doi.org/10.17507/tpls.1609.13
ISSN: 17992591
Kuartil SJR: Q1
Citations: 0

## Authors
- Rane Z.A.

## Abstract
Grounded in Andrea O’Reilly’s matricentric feminism, this study examines how maternal ambivalence, mother-blame, and agency are constructed in Maria Semple’s Where’d You Go, Bernadette? (2012). Using descriptive qualitative analysis, this study unravels the politics of the stigma mechanism and the negotiation of maternal ambivalence. The analysis finds that Bernadette’s ambivalence is cast as deviance because it conflicts with the norm of “intensive mothering” and total availability believed by the society. Gossip, school rituals, and digital documentation convert rumour into quasi-official facts, institutionalising mother-blame. The novel also advances “unruly care” (delegation, strategic withdrawal, and the recovery of creative work) as legitimate maternal agency that sustains caregiving capacity. Conceptually, the article refines O’Reilly’s framework by specifying 'unruly care' as an analytic for tracing movement from ambivalence, through stigmatisation, to agency in contemporary maternal fiction.

## Keywords
- Ambivalence
- Deviance (statistics)
- Agency (philosophy)
- Politics
- Negotiation
- Sociology
- Gender studies
- Documentation
- Norm (philosophy)
- Qualitative research
- Stigma (botany)
- Social psychology
- Narrative
- Criminology
- Complementarity (molecular biology)
- Grounded theory
- Schema (genetic algorithms)
- Psychology
- Qualitative analysis
- Normative

---
Sumber: Discover Unhas — RIMS Universitas Hasanuddin.
Saat mengutip, gunakan DOI bila tersedia atau URL kanonis di atas.