INCIHUSA   20883
INSTITUTO DE CIENCIAS HUMANAS, SOCIALES Y AMBIENTALES
Unidad Ejecutora - UE
congresos y reuniones científicas
Título:
Mothering experiences and public health institutions. An attempt of application of Institutional Ethnography in Mendoza, Argentina
Autor/es:
YAÑEZ, SABRINA SOLEDAD
Lugar:
Buenos Aires
Reunión:
Otro; 2nd ISA Forum of Sociology. Social Justice and Democratization; 2012
Institución organizadora:
International Sociological Association (ISA), ALAS, AAS
Resumen:
This paper seeks to share some of the findings and challenges of an
attempt to use institutional ethnography to explore the relationship between
the mothering experiences of low-income women and the institutional regulations
and practices of the public health system during the processes of pregnancy,
birth and puerperium, in Mendoza (Argentina), from 2001 to 2011.
This research project draws on Adrienne Rich?s distinction between
motherhood as experience and motherhood as institution. Despite the progresses regarding
sexual and reproductive rights and technologies that Argentina has achieved, I
believe there remains a persistent gap between the social meanings attributed
to motherhood and the experiences of concrete women. My inquiry focuses on the
forms of institutionalization of motherhood that are crystallized in the public
health system, for it is during the processes of pregnancy-delivery-puerperium
(that is, when motherhood passes through women?s bodies and puts them in
contact with ?experts? regarding their condition) that social meanings
attributed to motherhood become noticeably evident and intense.
Some of the
preliminary findings regarding mothering experiences reveal that pregnant,
laboring and puerperal women perform a corporeal work that goes mostly unacknowledged
by health institutions. As for the institution
of motherhood, it is produced and reproduced by discourses and practices that
naturalize or medicalize the processes of pregnancy, birth and puerperium
according to the needs of health institutions -which are determined by economic
restructuring and social policy trends- and/or to the personal beliefs of health
professionals.
The paper also
seeks to raise some of the unresolved questions that emerge when trying to
apply institutional ethnography in a context where public institutions are not
as coherent as they seem to be in other parts of the world -with factors such
as religious fundamentalism shaping institutional practices- but are all the
same subject to translocal ruling relations.