Paper short abstract:

Starting from my ethnographic research on early mothering in different contexts in Chile today, in this paper I reflect upon marianismo as a theoretical tool that, regardless of its limitations, remains important for an understanding of the maternal self and kinship in this country.

Paper long abstract:

For decades, several authors have claimed that marianismo is a fundamental concept for understanding kinship, gender and the maternal self in Latin America (e.g. Stevens 1977, Morandé 1984, Montecino 1991) claiming that the cult of feminine spiritual and moral superiority leads, in turn, to abnegation or the infinite capacity of sacrifice and humility. At the same time, anthropological accounts of mothering in different contexts in the region have turned down this theoretical tool as either too general to account for the specificities of ethnographic findings or as simply inadequate.

In my ongoing ethnographic research on early mothering in different contexts in Chile I have studied the process of becoming a mother -concretely from late pregnancy until the child turns one year of age - of 32 women in Santiago and the Araucanía Region, including women of different class and ethnic identities, living in urban and rural locations. The focus on this process accounts for the materialization of different personal and normative expectations regarding motherhood as well as the everyday coping and decision-making. Based in my findings in this paper I discuss the affordances and limitations of marianismo as a theoretical frame for an understanding of motherhood in Chile today. I claim that regardless of its unsuitability and inaccuracy in a range of cases and contexts, marianismo remains a useful tool to account for class and ethnic differences regarding mothering and kinship, as well as for the various existing tensions between normative expectations and women's everyday experience.