The international conference “Politics of Parenthood” was held in Belgrade at the Faculty of Philosophy, University of Belgrade, on 12–13 September 2014. Researchers from different countries discussed various phenomena related to parenthood, theoretical perspectives as well as women’s experiences.
The conference was multidisciplinary and included the following topics:
– Reproduction as a social and political resource, including the practices of biopolitics. This concerned the female body as a reproductive and sexual resource in public discourse, the physical and social experience of childbirth, childbirth in social discourse, the pro-natalist discourse today and in the recent past, the experiences of women and their attitude to reproductive rights and demographic issues, reproductive rights and the place of population policy in the EU.
– Partnership and procreation. This topic included the following aspects: partnerships, communication, interaction, satisfaction, decision-making in everyday life, conflict resolution, decision-making related to childbirth, relationship between partnership and parenthood, parenting resources, societal/governmental support, cohabiting mothers, genetic engineering, etc.
– Men’s and women’s social identities and parenting. This part of the conference included topics such as the transformation of gender identity under the influence of parenthood, new models of motherhood and fatherhood, the impact of state mechanisms on personal opportunities related to life choices and strategies of women and men, identity repositioning of women and men within the various referent social networks (family network, network of friends, professional network, work environment, etc).
The conference was organized within the project “Challenges of social integrations in Serbia: concepts and actors,” financed by the Ministry of Education, Science and Technological Development of the Republic of Serbia.
The conference was dedicated to Professor Anđelka Milić.