- Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Chile, Escuela de Antropología, Faculty Memberadd
- Ideologies of Motherhood, Anthropology of Europe, Spain (Mediterranean Studies), Medical Anthropology, Anthropology of Education, Economic Anthropology, and 14 moreAnthropology Of Spain, Anthropology of the Mediterranean, Cosmology (Anthropology), Mothering and Sociology, Anthropology of Children and Childhood, Motherhood and Public Discourse, Anthropology Of Consumption, Material Culture Studies, Anthropology, Anthropology of the Senses, Gender, Culture, Religion, and Ethnographyedit
- My research focuses on the areas of material culture, consumption, parenting and childrearing. Based on the study of ... moreMy research focuses on the areas of material culture, consumption, parenting and childrearing. Based on the study of different genres of material culture in everyday life, in my PhD research I studied the configuration of cosmology, personhood and the self in Madrid. In my work in Chile I have concentrated in the study of parenting, with a particular focus on mothering of young children and how it unfolds in different socio-demographic contexts in Chile. By tackling concrete instances such as childbirth, breastfeeding, childcare and parental relationship with expert knowledge and the State, among others, I analyse how these practices are configured and articulated in the context of social, economical and political transformation in contemporary Chile.
Mi investigación se concentra en las áreas de cultura material, consumo, parentalidad y crianza. A partir del estudio de diversos géneros de cultura material en la vida cotidiana, en mi doctorado estudié la configuración de la cosmología, la persona y el 'self' en la ciudad de Madrid. Si bien en ese estudio abordé temáticas de parentesco y parentalidad, ha sido en mi trabajo en Chile donde me he enfocado específicamente en el estudio de la parentalidad, con especial foco en la maternidad de niños pequeños, y cómo ésta se despliega en distintos contextos sociodemográficos en Chile. Abordando instancias concretas como son el parto, la lactancia, el cuidado de los niños y la relación de los padres con el conocimiento experto y el Estado, entre otros, analizo cómo se configuran y articulan estas prácticas en el contexto de las transformaciones sociales, económicas y políticas en el Chile contemporáneo.edit
Artículo de opinión en Cuadernos Sociales UC N°3 Equidad de Género (2024)
Research Interests:
In Chile, low-income women who are mothers are confronted daily with a normative ideal that exacerbates them as caregivers, together with public demands and social policies that value their hyper-rationality and hyper-austerity in the... more
In Chile, low-income women who are mothers are confronted daily with a normative ideal that exacerbates them as caregivers, together with public demands and social policies that value their hyper-rationality and hyper-austerity in the management of their families. This emphasis on their reproductive roles obliterates their emerging sense of intimacy and significant relations. Based on three case studies, in this article, we reflect on urban low-income women’s sense of and desire for intimacy that exceeds but does not exclude their maternal self. We present our findings based on three heuristic aspects of intimacy: rooted strategies for a renovated desire for intimacy; the desire to enjoy; and life outside the house and the desire for meaningful relations. We observe that these women’s efforts in their search for intimacy require them to orchestrate various strategies involving time and space management, money and relationships while resisting the normative pressures that place them ...
Research Interests:
Research Interests: Remote Sensing, Ethnography, Collaboration, Fieldwork in Anthropology, Creative Research Methods, and 14 moreEthnographic Fieldwork (Anthropology), Design of Experiments, Collaborative Design, Correspondence Analysis, Experimental Research, Anthropology of the contemporary, Anthropology at home, Entanglements, Confinement, Remoteness, Anthropology of Home, Collective Ethnography, Collaboratory Research, and Ethnographic Experimentation
This chapter presents an alternative view to classic attachment theory and research, arguing for systematic, ethnographically informed, approaches to the study of child development. It begins with the observation that the attachment... more
This chapter presents an alternative view to classic attachment theory and research, arguing for systematic, ethnographically informed, approaches to the study of child development. It begins with the observation that the attachment relationships children develop are locally determined and insists that these features of attachment can only be captured through observing, talking with, and listening to local people as they go about living their lives, including caring for children. It reviews the profound ways in which child care around the world differs from the Western model, upon which attachment theory was founded and myriad recommendations have been derived. This worldwide account perspective of child care is profusely illustrated with ethnographic examples. Network theory is then discussed: from the full range of social networks to relational ones (i.e., smaller sets of individuals to whom children may become attached). The chapter considers attachment theorists’ resistance to t...
In Chile, low-income women who are mothers are confronted daily with a normative ideal that exacerbates them as caregivers, together with public demands and social policies that value their hyper-rationality and hyper-austerity in the... more
In Chile, low-income women who are mothers are confronted daily with a normative ideal that exacerbates them as caregivers, together with public demands and social policies that value their hyper-rationality and hyper-austerity in the management of their families. This emphasis on their reproductive roles obliterates their emerging sense of intimacy and significant relations. Based on three case studies, in this article, we reflect on urban low-income women’s sense of and desire for intimacy that exceeds but does not exclude their maternal self. We present our findings based on three heuristic aspects of intimacy: rooted strategies for a renovated desire for intimacy; the desire to enjoy; and life outside the house and the desire for meaningful relations. We observe that these women’s efforts in their search for intimacy require them to orchestrate various strategies involving time and space management, money and relationships while resisting the normative pressures that place them ...
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Personal autonomy, volition and participation during early socialization: a dialogue between the LOPI model and ethnographic findings in a Mapuche context (Persona autónoma, volición y participación durante la socialización temprana: un diálogo entre el modelo LOPI y hallazgos etnográficos en un ...more
Capítulo en libro Deseducando a educação: Mentes, Materialidades, Metáforas, Editors: Ralph Ings Bannell, Mylene Mizrahi, Giselle Ferreira. Editora PUC.
Research Interests:
This chapter presents an alternative view to classic attachment theory and research, arguing for systematic, ethnographically informed, approaches to the study of child development. It begins with the observation that the attachment... more
This chapter presents an alternative view to classic attachment theory and research, arguing for systematic, ethnographically informed, approaches to the study of child development. It begins with the observation that the attachment relationships children develop are locally determined and insists that these features of attachment can only be captured through observing, talking with, and listening to local people as they go about living their lives, including caring for children. It reviews the profound ways in which child care around the world differs from the Western model, upon which attachment theory was founded and myriad recommendations have been derived. This worldwide account perspective of child care is profusely illustrated with ethnographic examples. Network theory is then discussed: from the full range of social networks to relational ones (i.e., smaller sets of individuals to whom children may become attached). The chapter considers attachment theorists’ resistance to t...
Research Interests:
Based on an ethnographic research on early mothering with a small and heterogeneous group of women living in different areas of Santiago, Chile – and a follow-up study six years later – in this article we look closely at how mothering... more
Based on an ethnographic research on early mothering with a small and heterogeneous group of women living in different areas of Santiago, Chile – and a follow-up study six years later – in this article we look closely at how mothering takes place through a sense of optimism while living in a hostile world, contrasting our findings with similar research in northern countries. Rather than waiting for opportunities to present themselves, women’s sense of optimism is based on their own difficult experiences of learning to cope in a hostile world, and how this requires organizing their children’s education to face challenges beyond their immediate family circle. We claim the existence of hyper-agentic motherhood – one that articulates traditional maternalism, increasing societal demands on parenting and the specific take on individuation detached from institutions in neoliberal Chile. Mothering through optimism in a hostile world questions the possibility to import classed parenting mode...
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Nadie es Perfecto (Nobody’s Perfect, or NEP) is a parenting skills workshop aimed at ‘sharing experiences and receiving guidance on everyday problems to strengthen child development’. This article explores this workshop in terms of its... more
Nadie es Perfecto (Nobody’s Perfect, or NEP) is a parenting skills workshop aimed at ‘sharing experiences and receiving guidance on everyday problems to strengthen child development’. This article explores this workshop in terms of its relationship with the daily lives of participants, based on one year of fieldwork focused on families with young children in a low-income neighbourhood in Santiago. While caregivers frame their parenting efforts as aiming to ‘hacer lo mejor posible’ (do their best) under difficult circumstances, our study found that facilitators take an anachronistic and homogenizing view of participants. Embracing a universalistic perspective of child development, they discourage participation and debate, focusing instead on providing concrete advice that limits the potential of the workshops. This article argues that by ignoring the different living situations of families in this socioeconomic context, NEP reproduces a prejudiced view of poor subjects that sees them...
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This article explores ethical issues raised by parenting interventions implemented in communities in low- to middle-income countries (LMICs) with rural, subsistence lifestyles. Many of these interventions foster “positive parenting... more
This article explores ethical issues raised by parenting interventions implemented in communities in low- to middle-income countries (LMICs) with rural, subsistence lifestyles. Many of these interventions foster “positive parenting practices” to improve children’s chances of fulfilling their developmental potential. The practices are derived from attachment theory and presented as the universal standard of good care. But attachment-based parenting is typical primarily of people living Western lifestyles and runs counter to the different ways many people with other lifestyles care for their children given what they want for them. Thus, such parenting interventions involve encouraging caregivers to change their practices and views, usually with little understanding of how such changes affect child, family, and community. This undermines researchers’ and practitioners’ ability to honor promises to uphold ethic codes of respect and beneficence. Support for this claim is provided by comp...
Research Interests: Psychology, Cognitive Science, Developmental Psychology, Psychological Anthropology, Ethics, and 15 moreDevelopment Studies, Globalization, Critical Pedagogy, Early Childhood Education, Cultural Psychology, Modernization, Culture, Attachment Theory, Ethnocentrism, Eurocentrism, Cross Cultural Psychology, Cross cultural studies, Parenting support, UNICEF, and Parenting interventions
This article examines the parent intervention program evaluated by Weber et al. (2017) and argues that there are scientific and ethical problems with such intervention efforts in applied developmental science. Scientifically, these... more
This article examines the parent intervention program evaluated by Weber et al. (2017) and argues that there are scientific and ethical problems with such intervention efforts in applied developmental science. Scientifically, these programs rely on data from a small and narrow sample of the world's population; assume the existence of fixed developmental pathways; and pit scientific knowledge against indigenous knowledge. The authors question the critical role of talk as solely providing the rich cognitive stimulation important to school success, and the critical role of primary caregivers as teachers of children's verbal competency. Ethically, these programs do not sufficiently explore how an intervention in one aspect of child care will affect the community's culturally organized patterns of child care.
Research Interests: Cultural Studies, Cognitive Science, African Studies, Development Studies, Early Intervention, and 15 moreLanguage Acquisition, Globalization, Humanitarianism, Critical Pedagogy, Early Childhood Education, Parenting, Child Development, Cultural Psychology, Modernization, Parent Child Relationships, Medicine, Caregiving, Cross Cultural Psychology, Parental education, and Parenting interventions
This article considers claims of Mesman et al. (2017) that sensitive responsiveness as defined by Ainsworth, while not uniformly expressed across cultural contexts, is universal. Evidence presented demonstrates that none of the components... more
This article considers claims of Mesman et al. (2017) that sensitive responsiveness as defined by Ainsworth, while not uniformly expressed across cultural contexts, is universal. Evidence presented demonstrates that none of the components of sensitive responsiveness (i.e., which partner takes the lead, whose point of view is primary, and the turn-taking structure of interactions) or warmth are universal. Mesman and colleagues' proposal that sensitive responsiveness is "providing for infant needs" is critiqued. Constructs concerning caregiver quality must be embedded within a nexus of cultural logic, including caregiving practices, based on ecologically valid childrearing values and beliefs. Sensitive responsiveness, as defined by Mesman and attachment theorists, is not universal. Attachment theory and cultural or cross-cultural psychology are not built on common ground.
Research Interests:
In this article, I reflect on the negotiations involved in childcare arrangements during the first year of life in two groups of mothers in Santiago. I focus on the ways in which local imageries of motherhood interact with global... more
In this article, I reflect on the negotiations involved in childcare arrangements during the first year of life in two groups of mothers in Santiago. I focus on the ways in which local imageries of motherhood interact with global tendencies in intensive mothering and the current public encouragement of increasing women’s participation in the workforce. In this study, low-income and lower middle class women prioritize staying with the baby over the year, becoming the main caregiver, and opting for giving up work and other relationships. In contrast, middle-class women go back to work by month six and combine different childcare alternatives. I argue that these women embody two ways of being a mother following different kinship expectations, relationship with expert trends, and cosmological aspects of motherhood. Consequently, they follow different paths in childcare decision making and in the management of concomitant emerging feelings such as guilt.
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
A trend toward what’s been called “intensive” (Hays, 1996) or “paranoid” (Furedi, 2002) parenting has been widely observed by scholars working on family life in a range of geographical contexts—notably, in the United Kingdom and the... more
A trend toward what’s been called “intensive” (Hays, 1996) or “paranoid” (Furedi, 2002) parenting has been widely observed by scholars working on family life in a range of geographical contexts—notably, in the United Kingdom and the United States (Arendell, 2000; Bell, 2004; Douglas & Michaels, 2004; Freely, 2000; Hochschild, 2003; Maher & Saugeres, 2007; Ramaekers & Suissa, 2011; Umansky, 1996; Warner, 2006) but also beyond (see Faircloth, Hoffman, & Layne, 2013). This “new parenting culture,” argue these scholars, is not just a new word for child rearing, or care activities associated with traditional kinship roles:
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Research Interests:
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Attachment theory has its roots in an ethnocentric complex of ideas, longstanding in the United States, under the rubric of “intensive mothering.” Among these various approaches and programs, attachment theory has had an inordinate and... more
Attachment theory has its roots in an ethnocentric complex of ideas, longstanding in the United States, under the rubric of “intensive mothering.” Among these various approaches and programs, attachment theory has had an inordinate and wide-ranging influence on a wide range of professions concerned with children (family therapy, education, the legal system, and public policy, the medical profession, etc.) inside and outside the United States. This chapter looks critically at how attachment theory has been applied in a variety of contexts and discusses its influence on parenting. It examines the tension distortion that often results when research findings are translated into actual applications or programs, ignoring any particularities of cultural context. It describes how attachment theory has been used as the basis for child-rearing manuals and has influenced programs and policies more directly, to form legal decisions that affect families, as well as to develop public policy and p...
Research Interests: Psychology, Developmental Psychology, Psychological Anthropology, Ethics, Critical Pedagogy, and 15 moreSocial and Cultural Anthropology, Early Childhood Education, Cultural Psychology, Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs), Modernization, Emotional Development, Attachment Theory, Early Childhood, Westernization, Anthropology of Childhood, Ethnocentrism, Eurocentrism, Cross Cultural Psychology, UNICEF, and Parenting interventions
Research Interests:
Based on an ethnographic research on early mothering with a small and heterogeneous group of women living in different areas of Santiago, Chile-and a follow-up study six years later-in this article we look closely at how mothering takes... more
Based on an ethnographic research on early mothering with a small and heterogeneous group of women living in different areas of Santiago, Chile-and a follow-up study six years later-in this article we look closely at how mothering takes place through a sense of optimism while living in a hostile world, contrasting our findings with similar research in northern countries. Rather than waiting for opportunities to present themselves, women's sense of optimism is based on their own difficult experiences of learning to cope in a hostile world, and how this requires organizing their children's education to face challenges beyond their immediate family circle. We claim the existence of hyper-agentic motherhood-one that articulates traditional maternalism, increasing societal demands on parenting and the specific take on individuation detached from institutions in neoliberal Chile. Mothering through optimism in a hostile world questions the possibility to import classed parenting models. We identify a resonance with Adrie Kusserow's description of hard individualism in which children are taught how to navigate the hostile world in the search for success, but with the difference that children in this context are brought up with the idea that mothers will be there for them in the long run, regardless of what actually takes place. This longitudinal study of parenting provides information on the usually silent processes of subjectification and emergent values that can be overlooked in times of social transformation.
Research Interests:
This chapter presents an alternative view to classic attachment theory and research, arguing for systematic, ethnographically informed, approaches to the study of child development. It begins with the observation that the attachment... more
This chapter presents an alternative view to classic attachment theory and research, arguing for systematic, ethnographically informed, approaches to the study of child development. It begins with the observation that the attachment relationships children develop are locally determined and insists that these features of attachment can only be captured through observing, talking with, and listening to local people as they go about living their lives, including caring for children. It reviews the profound ways in which child care around the world differs from the Western model, upon which attachment theory was founded and myriad recommendations have been derived. This worldwide account perspective of child care is profusely illustrated with ethnographic examples. Network theory is then discussed: from the full range of social networks to relational ones (i.e., smaller sets of individuals to whom children may become attached). The chapter considers attachment theorists' resistance to the idea of multiple attachments, historically and still today. Discussion closes with a summary of the implications of our theoretical rethinking and the questions that remain.
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
In this article, I reflect on the negotiations involved in childcare arrangements during the first year of life in two groups of mothers in Santiago. I focus on the ways in which local imageries of motherhood interact with global... more
In this article, I reflect on the negotiations involved in childcare arrangements during the first year of life in two groups of mothers in Santiago. I focus on the ways in which local imageries of motherhood interact with global tendencies in intensive mothering and the current public encouragement of increasing women’s participation in the workforce. In this study, low-income and lower middle class women prioritize staying with the baby over the year, becoming the main caregiver, and opting for giving up work and other relationships. In contrast, middle-class women go back to work by month six and combine different childcare alternatives. I argue that these women embody two ways of being a mother following different kinship expectations, relationship with expert trends, and cosmological aspects of motherhood. Consequently, they follow different paths in childcare decision making and in the management of concomitant emerging feelings such as guilt.
Based on ethnographic work with women from different economic and educational backgrounds in Santiago, this article describes the experiences of labor and birth from the point of view of women's priorities, socio-economic constraints, and... more
Based on ethnographic work with women from different economic and educational backgrounds in Santiago, this article describes the experiences of labor and birth from the point of view of women's priorities, socio-economic constraints, and relationships with the medical system. Specifically I focus on their desires expressed during the late prenatal period and their narratives of the actual birth. Class and the differences in opportunities resulting from educational and class inequalities melt down into near invisibility as vulnerability rises and women become increasingly subjected to medical decision making. The longstanding Chilean focus on child-centeredness, while shown to benefit bonding, can work to obliterate women’s own desires and choices by encouraging them to “sacrifice their all” for the sake of the baby. This kind of sacrifice defines the meaning of the maternal body in Chile. I suggest further analysis of these factors is essential for an understanding of the hyper-medicalized Chilean context.
For decades, several authors have claimed that marianismo is a fundamental concept for understanding kinship, gender and the maternal self in Latin America. My ethnographic research on early mothering in different contexts in Chile shows... more
For decades, several authors have claimed that marianismo is a fundamental concept for understanding kinship, gender and the maternal self in Latin America. My ethnographic research on early mothering in different contexts in Chile shows that some theses of marianismo (Morandé 1984, Montecino 2010) provide important insights for the understanding of the discourses and practices of specific groups of women in Santiago de Chile (Murray 2013). Furthermore, marianismo illuminates the acknowledgement of the intertwining of a history of public policies that promote the self-sacrificial, responsible mother, with their everyday lives. These encounters and negotiations become particularly problematic when women of a rather different cultural and social background relate with policies regarding good mothering that they find hard to relate to. In the case of mapuche women, “shared motherhood” and a des-centered motherhood clash with the dyadic paradigm of motherhood promoted by experts and professionals in the field. The discrepancy between different mothering projects and imageries of womanhood and motherhood allows for a reflection upon the various and at times contradictory maternal subjectivities that are not only enacted but also prescribed to “others” in this country. It is in the sense of the encounters and dis-encounters of different maternal subjectivities that the ideal of marianismo remains a relevant frame for an understanding of motherhood in Chile.
Las decisiones y negociaciones que realizan las familias respecto del cuidado del hijo durante el primer año de vida involucran no sólo la identidad y prioridades de las madres y padres, sino que también a un ensamblaje complejo en el que... more
Las decisiones y negociaciones que realizan las familias respecto del cuidado del hijo durante el primer año de vida involucran no sólo la identidad y prioridades de las madres y padres, sino que también a un ensamblaje complejo en el que familia, políticas públicas, el mundo del trabajo, el sistema médico y el conocimiento experto, entre otros, están intrínsecamente vinculados. A partir de un estudio etnográfico del proceso de convertirse en madre en Santiago de Chile durante el primer año de vida del niño, esta ponencia analiza las formas en que un grupo de mujeres trabajadoras de distintos niveles socioeconómicos en esta ciudad negocian y configuran el cuidado de sus hijos durante este período, proyectando éste en el marco de la vida familiar y laboral futura. Este análisis nos situará de lleno en las redefiniciones de creencias y prácticas del cuidado de los niños pero, más profundamente, en las diversas tensiones entre las formas del ser maternal y del niño arraigadas en distintos grupos de esta sociedad y los cambios que éstas enfrentan actualmente. El vínculo de parentesco específico que establecen estas mujeres con sus hijos en este momento temprano requiere la consideración de las distintas expectativas y metas que ellas plantean para esta relación en el futuro.
Chile is a country with low female participation in the labour market and a precarious institutional frame for working mothers. In this context, a well-known practice by paediatricians is to “decide” the best time for each mother to go... more
Chile is a country with low female participation in the labour market and a precarious institutional frame for working mothers. In this context, a well-known practice by paediatricians is to “decide” the best time for each mother to go back to work, bypassing the legal maternity leave timing of three months. They do this by providing mothers with health licenses diagnosing fictive or exaggerated health conditions of the baby or the mother. They also provide an influential opinion regarding institutional childcare for small babies, which is many times contradictory with the local tendencies in policy, the labour system and even mothers’ priorities. As part of my wider ethnographic research on early mothering and childrearing in Chile today, in this paper I discuss the normative struggles and decisions mothers confront in the negotiations on maternity leave and childcare, in a context of contradictory values and authoritative knowledge on mothering.