Maternities, childhoods, and rights: affective economies and the bureaucratization of “maternal love” in family reunification processes

Abstract

This article examines the so-called family reunification processes carried out within state child protection systems, aimed at restoring children’s rights. Also referred to as shelter measures, these processes involve a six-month period during which children are removed from their family environments due to perceived risk. During this time, families, mainly mothers, are urged to modify certain behaviors and ensure adequate conditions of well-being in order to enable the return of their children. Based on ethnographic research into the implementation of protective measures in the central region of Buenos Aires, Argentina, I analyse the ways in which these women are evaluated, judged and supported in their behaviour by various institutional actors who, through the design of strategies aimed at reversing the situation that led to the separation, record, classify and evaluate their behaviour, and decide whether or not they can keep their children with them. This analysis reveals the formation of specific affective economies through which the ideal of maternal love is reproduced, establishing emotional expressions and feelings associated with motherhood as key determinants in decisions about reunification or the path toward adoption. I argue that the emphasis placed on the affective dimension as a criterion for evaluating a certain notion of “maternal fitness” tends to obscure the sociocultural dimension in the production of affects and to legitimises reproductive inequalities associated with motherhood.