“Mal-Nutrition is dedicated to mothers, broadly defined. I [Emily Yates-Doerr] wrote much of it at the height of the coronavirus pandemic, amid daily reminders of how the institution of American motherhood offloads the work of caring for the future onto women while isolating them from the communities and stripping them of the resources needed for this work. It has been chilling to watch today’s authoritarian politicians double down on the nuclear model of family, eviscerating public services and reproductive autonomy that offer women life outside of subservient domestic roles. To counter this horror I take solace in an image that went viral during my fieldwork of Guatemalan mothers blocking a highway in political protest. The women are completely in control—not scared, or weak, or vulnerable. Nutrition is often used to undermine mothers’ community-building power, but mothers are powerful too. ”
From Emily Yates-Doerr’s Carson Prize Acceptance Statement, 2025 – https://4sonline.org/2025_emily_yates-doerr.php
Book download link: https://www.ucpress.edu/books/mal-nutrition/paper