No. 7 (2014), Articles
No. 7 (2014)

The configuration of motherhood through social investment in children: examples from Canada and Mexico

Articles
Published 2014-08-13
Lucy Luccisano
Departamento de Sociología y Programa de Estudios Norteamericanos. Wilfrid Laurier University
Glenda Wall
Departamento de Socilogía. Wilfrid Laurier University.
PDF (Spanish)

Keywords

Post-neoliberalism
social investment
social regulation
mothering
Canada
Mexico

How to Cite

The configuration of motherhood through social investment in children: examples from Canada and Mexico. (2014). Revista De El Colegio De San Luis, 7, 180-202. https://doi.org/10.21696/rcsl072014585
ACM ACS APA ABNT Chicago Harvard IEEE MLA Turabian Vancouver

Download Citation

Endnote/Zotero/Mendeley (RIS) BibTeX

Abstract

As post-neoliberal scholars have pointed out, social investment targeting risk groups has become the focus of social spending by states in many countries around the world, and children, given their inherent potential, have increasingly become the focus of state investments aimed at enhancing their future integration into the market economy. This chapter details the results of two case studies which examine the regulation of motherhood in very different contexts where neo-liberal techniques target investment in children. In Canada recent campaigns have urged mothers to invest heavily in their children during their early years in order to enhance brain development and future market success. In Mexico, the state-sponsored anti-poverty program aims to increase children’s human capital development through the educational system as a way to ensure the future insertion of rural Mexicans into the market economy. The results of in-depth interviews with mothers in southern Ontario and rural Mexico are compared, and while the there are many class-based and cultural differences in the experiences of these mothers, there are also some surprising similarities in terms of the effects of a social investment framework on the regulation of motherhood.
PDF (Spanish)

References

BECK, E. (1996). “Life as a planning project”. En: S. Lash, B. Szerszynski y B. Wynne (eds.). Risk, environment and modernity: Towards a new ecology. Londres: Sage.

BRAINE, T. (2006). “Reaching Mexico’s poorest”. Bulletin of the World Health Organization, 84(8):592-593.

CASTANEDA, C. (2002). Figurations: Child bodies worlds. Durham, N. C.: Duke University Press.

CRUIKSHANK, B. (1996). “Revolutions within: Self-government and self-esteem”. En: A. Barry, T. Osborne y N. Rose (eds.). Foucault and Political Reason: Liberalism, Neoliberalism and Rationalities of Government. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

CHILD WELFARE LEAGUE OF CANADA. (2003). Children in care in Canada: Asummary of current issues and trends with recommendations for future research. Ottawa: Child Welfare League of Canada.

COORDINACIÓN NACIONAL DEL PROGRAMA DE DESARROLLO HUMANO OPORTUNIDADES. (2005). Mujeres con oportunidades. México: SEDESOL (también disponible en: http://www.oportunidades.gob.mx/e_oportunidades/publicaciones/MUJERES_LIBRO_COMPLETO_interiores.pdf).

DOBROWOLSKY, A. y Jenson, J. (2004). “Shifting representations of citizenship: Canadian policies of ‘women’ and ‘children’”. Social Politics, 11 (2):154-180.

DUARTE, M. et al. (2004). Impact of Oportunidades on knowledge and practices of beneficiary mothers and young scholarship recipients. An evaluation of the educational health sessions. México: Instituto Nacional de Salud Pública (también disponible en: http://evaluacion.oportunidades.gob.mx:8010/en/docs/eval_docs_2004.php)

GERTLER, P. y Fernald, L. (2004). “The medium term impact of Oportunidades on child development in rural areas” [en línea]. November 30. Disponible en: http://www.sarpn.org.za/documents/d0001264/P1498-Child_dev_terminado_1dic04.pdf [consultado: 2012, enero].

GHAFOUR, H. (2006). “Blair’s speech on child care draws fire”. The Globe and Mail, september 6: A12.

HAWKESWORTH, M. (2009). “Neoliberalism and the Micropolitics of Domination in the United States”. En: L. Macdonald y A. Ruckert (eds.). Post-Neoliberalism in the Americas. Nueva York: Palgrave-Macmillan.

HAYS, S. (1996). The cultural contradictions of motherhood. New Haven: Yale University Press.

JENSON, J. (2001). “Canada’s shifting citizenship regime: Investing in children”. En: Salmon, T. y Keating, M. (eds.). The Dynamics of Decentralization. Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press.

JENSON, J. y Sineau, M. (2001). “The care dimension in welfare state redesign”. En: J. Jenson y M. Sineau (eds.). In who cares? women’s work, childcare, and welfare state redesign. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.

LUCCISANO, L. (2006). “The Mexican Oportunidades Program: Questioning the linking of security to conditional social investments for mothers and children”. Canadian Journal of Latin American and Caribbean Studies, 31 (62): 53-85.

McCAIN, M. y Mustard, J. (1999). Early years study: Final report. Toronto: Publications Ontario.

MacDONALD, L. y Ruckert, A. (2009). “Post-Neoliberalism in the Americas: An Introduction”. En: L. Macdonald y A. Ruckert (eds.). Post-Neoliberalism in the Americas. Nueva York: Palgrave-Macmillan.

MAHON, R. y Macdonald, L. (2009) “Poverty Policy and Politics in Canada and Mexico: ‘Inclusive’ Liberalism?”. En: L. Macdonald y A. Ruckert (eds.). Post- Neoliberalism in the Americas. Nueva York: Palgrave-Macmillan.

NADESAN, M. (2002). “Engineering the entrepreneurial infant: Brain science, infant development toys, and governmentality”. Cultural Studies, 16(3):401-432.

ONTARIO ASSOCIATIONOF CHILDREN’S AID SOCIETIES. (2007). CASfacts: April 1, 2005-March 31, 2006. Toronto y Ontario: Association of Children’s Aid Aocieties.

PECK, J. y Tickell, A. (2002). “Neoliberalizing space”. Antipode, 34 (3): 380-404.

PITT, K. (2002). “Being a New Capitalist Mother”. Discourse and Society, 13(2):251-67.

PORTER, D. y Craig, D. (2004). “The third way and the third world: Poverty reduction and social inclusion in the rise of ‘inclusive’ liberalism”. Review of International Political Economy, 11 (2): 387-423.

RICHARDSON, D. (1993). Women, motherhood, and childrearing. Nueva York: St. Martin’s Press.

RUCKERT, A. (2009). “The World Bank and the Poverty Reduction Strategy of Nicara- gua: Toward a Post-Neoliberal World Development Order?”. En: L. Macdonald y A. Ruckert (eds.). Post-Neoliberalism in the Americas. Nueva York: Palgrave- Macmillan.

SUNDERLAND, J. (2006). “‘Parenting’ or ‘mothering’? The case of modern childcare magazines”. Discourse and Society, 17(4): 503-527.

TROCMÉ, N. y Chamberland, D. (2003). “Reinvolving the community: The need for a differential response to rising child welfare caseloads in Canada”. Paper presented at the 4th National Child Welfare Symposium, Banff, March.

VIZCARRA, B. y Guadarrama, X. (2007). “¿Qué ganan y que pierden las mujeres mazahuas con el programa Oportunidades cuando los hombres emigran?”. Ponencia presentada en el XXVII International Congress of the Latin American Studies Association, Montreal, Quebec, septiembre 5-8.

WALL, G. y Arnold, S. (2007). “How involved is involved fathering?: An exploration of the contemporary culture of fatherhood”. Gender & Society, 21 (4): 508-527.

WALL, G. (2004). “Is your child’s brain potential maximized? Mothering in an age of new brain research”. Atlantis, 28(2):41–50.

WALL, G. (2001). “Moral constructions of motherhood in breastfeeding discourse”. Gender & Society, 15(4):590-608.

WEISS, N. (1978) “The mother-child dyad revisited: Perceptions of mothers and children in twentieth century child-rearing manuals”. Journal of Social Issues, 34 (2):29-45.

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

Copyright (c) 2014 Revista de El Colegio de San Luis