Metaphors of Motherhood in a Children’s Healthcare System in Chile: Between Nature and Human Capital

This article presents the partial results of a larger investigation aimed at knowing the circulating meanings of motherhood, childhood and their care in a healthcare system in Chile. To achieve this aim, a metaphor analysis was performed using the metaphor identification procedure (MIP) applied to a textual corpus made up of reading materials produced and used by the system. The results indicate that the different forms through which the maternal body is represented, from inanimate objects to a business practice, allow knowing a wide range of imaginaries, ambivalences and demands that are made of maternal practices in the health context and that shape gender inequalities. We conclude that motherhood continues to be embedded in the imaginary of nature as a private and hermetic experience in which the figure of the mother-child binomial continues to be fundamental for the health objectives to which new demands linked to the reproduction of human capital have been added. This hinders alternative ways of representing motherhood, the negotiations of maternal identities, other desires that inhabit women, and the differential positions and interests between children and women.