Toward a social geography of baby farming

This paper uses a range of archival sources to undertake a case study of the people and practices encompassed by the term “baby farming” in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. It argues that baby farming needs to be located in space and time in order to reach some accommodation between its materiality and the discursive construction that continues to distort historical debate. Neither a criminal nor a compassionate practice, baby farming emerges as an economic exchange predicated on the vulnerability of single mothers, the disposability of their children, and in many cases, the desperation of poor women who see taking infants to nurse as a way of earning an income.