Representations of Infant Caregiving as a Problem of Public Policy in the Ecuadorian State: Ambivalences and Potential Changes

In the present article, I ask about the principal representations of infant caregiving as a problem of public policy present in official documents and in the current rhetoric of Ecuadorian state functionaries. I use a deliberative focus for the analysis of public policies and argue that these repres...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autor principal: Villamediana, Virginia
Formato: Revistas
Lenguaje:Español
Publicado: Facultad Latinoamericana de Ciencias Sociales, Sede Ecuador 2014
Acceso en línea:https://iconos.flacsoandes.edu.ec/index.php/iconos/article/view/1431
Descripción
Sumario:In the present article, I ask about the principal representations of infant caregiving as a problem of public policy present in official documents and in the current rhetoric of Ecuadorian state functionaries. I use a deliberative focus for the analysis of public policies and argue that these representations are characterized by the ambivalence between visions that consider women as principally responsible for caregiving and that position the state and the market as protagonists as well. Elements are joined that could favor changes in traditional representations, as the inclusion in discourse of co-responsibility and in practice of the professionalization of caregiving. This article makes evident that infant caregiving is a complex category and in political dispute, whose forms of representation have the capacity of producing specific subjectivities that are marked by aspects such as gender and class.