Alterity and the maternal in adoptee phenomenology

The project that I embark upon in this paper is an enquiry into the role of the maternal body in the development of alterity in the child. I begin by drawing on a previous publication in Parrhesia, where I explore the phenomenology of the maternal-foetal affective relation through the philosophy of Maurice Merleau-Ponty, outlining how the foetal body schema develops through maternally structured movement while in utero.