Good Enough Mothers: Practicing Nurture and Motherhood in Chiapas, Mexico

211 Pages·2021·15.637 MB·English

by  J.M. Lopez

GOOD ENOUGH MOTHERS
Fertility, Reproduction and Sexuality
GENERAL EDITORS:
Soraya Tremayne, Founding Director, Fertility and Reproduction Studies Group
and Research Associate, Institute of Social and Cultural Anthropology, University of
Oxford.
Marcia C. Inhorn, William K. Lanman, Jr. Professor of Anthropology and
International Affairs, Yale University.
Philip Kreager, Director, Fertility and Reproduction Studies Group, and Research
Associate, Institute of Social and Cultural Anthropology and Institute of Human
Sciences, University of Oxford
Understanding the complex and multifaceted issue of human reproduction has
been, and remains, of great interest both to academics and practitioners. This series
includes studies by specialists in the fi eld of social, cultural, medical and biological
anthropology, medical demography, psychology and development studies. Current
debates and issues of global relevance on the changing dynamics of fertility, human
reproduction and sexuality are addressed.
Recent volumes:
Volume 49 Volume 44
Good Enough Mothers: Practicing Privileges of Birth: Constellations of
Nurture and Motherhood in Care, Myth and Race in South Africa
Chiapas, Mexico Jennifer J.M. Rogerson
J.M. López
Volume 43
Volume 48 Access to Assisted Reproductive
How Is a Man Supposed to Be a Technologies: The Case of France
Man? Male Childlessness – a Life and Belgium
Course Disrupted Edited by Jennifer Merchant
Robin A. Hadley
Volume 42
Volume 47 Making Bodies Kosher: The Politics
Waithood: Gender, Education, and of Reproduction among Haredi Jews
Global Delays in Marriage in England
and Childbearing Ben Kasstan
Edited by Marcia C. Inhorn and
Volume 41
Nancy J. Smith-Hefner
Elite Malay Polygamy: Wives, Wealth
Volume 46 and Woes in Malaysia
Abortion in Post-revolutionary Miriam Koktvedgaard Zeitzen
Tunisia: Politics, Medicine and
Volume 40
Morality
Being a Sperm Donor: Masculinity,
Irene Maffi
Sexuality, and Biosociality in
Volume 45 Denmark
Navigating Miscarriage: Social, Sebastian Mohr
Medical and Conceptual
Perspectives
Edited by Susie Kilshaw and Katie Borg
For a full volume listing, please see the series page on our website:
http://www.berghahnbooks.com/series/fertility-reproduction-and-sexuality
GOOD ENOUGH MOTHERS
P N
RACTICING URTURE AND
M C , M
OTHERHOOD IN HIAPAS EXICO
J.M. López
berghahn
N E W Y O R K (cid:129) O X F O R D
www.berghahnbooks.com
First published in 2022 by
Berghahn Books
www.berghahnbooks.com
© 2022 J.M. López
All rights reserved. Except for the quotation of short passages
for the purposes of criticism and review, no part of this book
may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or
mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information
storage and retrieval system now known or to be invented,
without written permission of the publisher.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: López, J.M., author.
Title: Good Enough Mothers: Practicing Nurture and Motherhood in
Chiapas, Mexico / J.M. López.
Description: New York: Berghahn Books, 2022. | Series: Fertility,
Reproduction and Sexuality; volume 49 | Includes bibliographical
references and index.
Identifi ers: LCCN 2021038458 (print) | LCCN 2021038459 (ebook) |
ISBN 9781800732520 (hardback) | ISBN 9781800732537 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Motherhood—Mexico—Chiapas. | Mothers—Services
for—Mexico—Chiapas. | Maternal health services—Mexico—
Chiapas. | Discrimination in medical care—Mexico—Chiapas. |
Family services—Mexico—Chiapas.
Classifi cation: LCC HV700.M4 L67 2022 (print) |
LCC HV700.M4 (ebook) | DDC 306.874/3097275—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021038458
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021038459
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN 978-1-80073-252-0 hardback
ISBN 978-1-80073-253-7 ebook
For my mum and dad,
my children Emilia, Issac, Frida and Diego

C
ONTENTS
List of Illustrations viii
Acknowledgements ix
Introduction 1
PART I. CONTEXTS
Chapter 1. La Orilla: Coletas and Coloniality 13
PART II. CHILDBEARING POLITICS
Chapter 2. Bety and Rosa 33
Chapter 3. Bridging the Gap: Barrio Midwives 63
Chapter 4. Cris, Sofi and Esme: The Birth Centre 85
PART III. NURTURE WORK
Chapter 5. Lupita and Carlita 117
Chapter 6. Sara, Bania and Lila: Good Enough Mothers 143
Conclusion. Translating a Local-Global Maternal Health 169
Appendix. On Doing Fieldwork with Children 173
References 177
Index 189
I
LLUSTRATIONS
Maps
0.1. Mexico (source: public domain, https://commons
.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=4786068) xiii
0.2. Los Altos region, Chiapas, Mexico (source: CC BY-SA
4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php
?curid=88810811) xiii
Figures
1.1. Main Street, la Orilla, Mexico, 2013 © J.M. López 16
1.2. Callejon, la Orilla, Mexico, 2013 © J.M. López 17
3.1. and 3.2 Examples of walk-in clinics, Mexico, 2013
© J.M. López 74
4.1. The lilac façade of the birth centre, Mexico, 2015
© J.M. López 84
A
CKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This book is the product of a decade’s worth of life transitions,
relationships, family making, births, time spent between two
countries and my personal development as anthropologist and
researcher. Naming myself as sole author almost feels like a charade.
No ethnography is ever made from one individual. The stories are
provided by the generous people who share their lives and intimate
thoughts. My observations, analysis and theories about the human
condition of togetherness and transformations only exist because
of my relationship to the families in Chiapas, the global academic
community, my students, my family and friends and just about
anyone who I have ever spoken to about parenthood, childbearing
and life. I have written a book out of my own words and labour, but
the ideas and knowledge are a collective effort.
Since I fi rst travelled to Mexico in 2003, I have met many people
who have sheltered me, fed me and welcomed me so that I now
struggle to say where I feel most at home. Those people are special
and my thanks to them is as it should be, written in their own
language below these paragraphs. One person who I do thank in
English, Spanish and the unspoken language of intuition is Cris
Alonso, a midwife and friend for life who came to be my co-creator
of knowledge. Thank you for the freedom and grace to use your
words without censorship.
The international world of anthropology has been my dysfunctional
family since I fi rst came to study the subject at postgraduate level in
2006. Though I never thought I would think it, I am grateful that
my career in social and community work preceded my identity as an
anthropologist. I came to anthropology with a distinct critical eye for
inequality, social justice and complex human relations thanks to the
years spent working in sexual health, substance misuse and families
in the UK and Mexico. The combination of these two careers kept
me in the belief that research is and should be robust, objective