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Mothers of the Sea: Mothering and Caring in Small-Scale Fishing Communities

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No. 24 (2025): Diciembre
https://doi.org/10.5354/2735-7473.2025.82613
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Abstract

This qualitative study examines the experiences of motherhood and caregiving among women working in artisanal fishing coves along the central coast of Chile. Based on 11 interviews, it analyzes the strategies these mothers deploy to reconcile traditional gender norms with paid work in masculinized spaces. The findings reveal hybrid care regimes —familialist, community-based/solidary, and self-subordinated— that emerge in response to precarious conditions and the systemic crisis of care, along with tensions between the transmission of fishing knowledge and the aspiration for social mobility for their children. The double burden, coastal territoriality, and gender-based violence shape life trajectories and situated motherhoods that simultaneously reproduce and challenge gender norms and social inequalities. The article concludes with a call for co-responsibility policies that acknowledge the undervalued productive and reproductive labor of these mothers working in small-scale fisheries, questioning the normalization of self-sacrifice as the only path to sustaining life.

Keywords:

care , gender , motherhood , hegemonic masculinity , artisanal fishing

Author Biographies

Rosario Undurraga, Universidad Finis Terrae

Doctora en Sociología, Magíster en Estudios Laborales Comparativos y Psicóloga. Profesora titular de la Escuela de Ciencias de la Familia, Universidad Finis Terrae.

Camilo Basualto, Universidad Finis Terrae

Cientista social. Analista de datos Observatorio de Empleabilidad, Universidad Finis Terrae

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How to Cite
Undurraga, R. ., & Basualto, C. . (2025). Mothers of the Sea: Mothering and Caring in Small-Scale Fishing Communities . Revista Punto Género, (24), pp. 176–211. https://doi.org/10.5354/2735-7473.2025.82613
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Revista Punto Género
Facultad de Ciencias Sociales
Universidad de Chile
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