Children are part of the landscape: motherhood and child mobility in southern Chile

Abstract

This article seeks to contribute to the understanding of the social and political construction of motherhood in recent Chilean history, based on a socio-anthropological approach to child circulation. The work is based on an analysis of the life stories of three rural housewives from the province of Osorno, whose biographies challenge the ideals historically assigned to family arrangements in Chile. Influenced by family-centered and patriarchal mandates, these ideals coincide with a model that privatizes the family unit based on a strict division of gender roles within the domestic sphere and the legitimization of the care and upbringing of children exclusively within those boundaries. In tension with this structure, the life trajectories of these women allow us to explore the daily routine of circulation, the material and cultural conditions that sustain it, and the social importance conferred upon it, in order to identify and analyze specific interpretive frameworks and moral values associated with motherhood in our country.