Dr Patricia Hamilton
Lecturer

Profile

Biography

• PhD Women’s Studies and Feminist Research, University of Western Ontario (Canada)
• MA Gender Studies, University of Sussex
• BA (Hons) English and Sociology, University of the Witwatersrand (South Africa)

I joined the University of York as a Lecturer in Sociology in September 2022. I completed my undergraduate degree in South Africa, majoring in English and Sociology, before moving to the UK for an MA in Gender Studies, funded by a Commonwealth scholarship.

For my PhD at the University of Western Ontario, I interviewed black mothers living in the UK and Canada and explored their engagements with attachment parenting, a popular parenting philosophy that emphasises secure attachment between mother and child and is promoted as a ‘natural’ and ‘instinctive’ approach to raising children.

The monograph based on this doctoral research, Black Mothers and Attachment Parenting, was published in the Bristol University Press Sociology of Children and Families series and was shortlisted for the 2021 BSA Philip Abrams Memorial Prize.

I have taught and conducted research in South Africa, Canada and the UK and was previously a lecturer in the Sociology and Social Anthropology department at Stellenbosch University.

Prior to joining York, I was a Marie Curie Research Fellow at the Thomas Coram Research Unit in UCL’s Social Research Institute. My project examined parenting leave policies in the UK since the 1970s from the perspective of black parents.

In 2023, I co-founded the Radical Mothering Research Collective with Sarah Werner Boada (University of Warwick). The Collective brings together scholars, activists and practitioners to examine and challenge the everyday experiences of mothering in Europe.

I am an Associate Editor for Families, Relationships and Societies (since 2021) and serve on the editorial board of Sociology (since 2023).

Departmental roles

Chair of the EDI committee

Research

Overview

My research sits at the intersection of black feminist theory, parenting culture studies and reproduction, particularly examining how everyday experiences of family are shaped by the intersection of racism, sexism and capitalism. Previous projects have examined 'natural' birth, breastfeeding, attachment parenting and parenting leave policies.

My current project focuses on assisted reproductive technologies and their intersection with race, particularly from the perspective of black (would-be) parents.

I welcome PhD students interested in any of these or related areas.

Publications

Selected publications

• Hamilton, P., & Faircloth, C. (2025). Race and neoliberal citizenship in the construction of good (attachment) parents: Parenting Culture Studies and beyond. The Sociological Review, [OnlineFirst].
• Hamilton, P. (2023). Shared parental leave has failed because it doesn't make financial or emotional sense. The Conversation (August 23).
• Hamilton, P. (2021). ‘These people have seen this in our cultures back home’: Black mothers in the UK and Canada reclaim attachment parenting. Ethnic & Racial Studies, 44 (14), 2595-2614.
• Hamilton, P. (2021). Researching parental leave during a pandemic: Lessons from black feminist theory and relationality. Families, Relationships and Societies, 10 (1), 197-203.
• Hamilton, P. (2020). Black mothers and attachment parenting: A black feminist analysis of intensive mothering in Britain and Canada. Bristol: Bristol University Press.
• Hamilton, P. (2020). ‘Now that I know what you’re about’: Black feminist reflections on power in the research relationship. Qualitative Research, 20 (5), 519-533. 
• Hamilton, P., Lawson, E., Gaudet, C., Chisolm, J., Kaur, J., & Abercromby, S. (2018). At the intersection of idealized youth and marginalized almost-adulthood: How girls negotiate young motherhood in London, Ontario. Journal of Youth Studies, 21 (9), 1182-1197.
• Hamilton, P. (2016). The ‘good’ attached mother: An analysis of postmaternal and postracial thinking in birth and breastfeeding policy in neoliberal Britain. Australian Feminist Studies, 31 (90), 410-431.

Non-refereed publications

• Hamilton, P. (2023). Book review: Birthing black mothers by Jennifer C. Nash. Durham and London: Duke University Press, 2021. Ethnic and Racial Studies, 46 (3), 626-628, (invited).
• Hamilton, P. (2019). Book review: The ethics and politics of breastfeeding: Power, pleasure, poetics by Robyn Lee. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2018. Canadian Journal of Sociology, 44 (4), 455-458, (invited).