Power and Resistance in U.S. Child Custody Mediation

In this article, I draw on Michel Foucault's (1972, 1978, 1979, 1980) work to examine the phenomenon of child custody mediation. Custody mediation provides a window into power and resistance, locating their position and pinpointing their application and the methods used. Custody mediation sessions, whereby rights and obligations are imposed on parents, are a site where power and knowledge meet and the meanings of parenthood post-relationship are produced. I find that although the cooperative model of mediation was instituted to facilitate the ideal of genderneutral shared parenting post-relationship, the normalizing judgment and disciplinary practices of mediators thwarts resistance and produces as an effect a new economy of power relations that reproduce earlier forms of domination.