« With all the worries I have, my head works at night »

Maternal sleeplessness and mothering nights in Marseille’s northern districts

Abstract

This paper seeks to explore urban sleep as a social subject influenced by representations, material and environmental variations, as well as social and gender inequalities. Sleeping is built upon and transmitted from "sleep techniques" (Mauss, 1936) and conceptions related to the world of night, which vary according to context and time. The main interlocutors of this research are mothers of young children living in the 15th arrondissement of Marseille. Their walks of life intersect migratory and motherhood experiences in a precarious urban context, often prone to isolation. They have to teach their children to sleep and may find themselves trapped between different representations and knowledge, which are sources of misunderstandings and uncer- tainties. For them, the night is neither the space-time of work, nor that of leisure, nor that of sleep.