In recent decades, changes have occurred in motherhood and fatherhood (1), which are part of broader social processes linked, among other aspects, to the transformations of work and mobility, to the questioning of heterosexual patterns as the only model for the exercise of sexualities and family constitution (Arteaga and Armijo, 2018), to the questioning of the sexual division of domestic and care tasks, and to the legitimization of the child rights approach (UNICEF, 1989).

Parenthood, as a social practice involving the care and upbringing of children and young people, has been attributed, in modern Western contexts, to the prototypical modern family as a hegemonic model, although never fully implemented in Latin American and Caribbean countries (Llobet and Vergara, 2022). This has gone hand in hand with a persistent feminization of childcare and education (Faur, Esquivel, and Jelin, 2012; Faur, 2014). Related to this, and the presence of subsidiary states in Latin America and the Caribbean, we find familial and privatizing logics of care, which underpin the relative public disengagement from its provision.

Since the 60s, however, we have observed a growing visibility of women's place in families, which has materialized in the denaturalization of the maternal role (Badinter, 1981) and the control of birth, among other aspects. Likewise, there has been a critique of hegemonic masculinities (Connell, 1987), opening up new possibilities for fatherhood, which have incorporated new spaces for affection, connection, and play with children, although not yet the heavier and more monotonous tasks of their care and upbringing (Aguayo et al., 2016; Valdés, 2008). Processes of openness toward same-sex parenting and the use of assisted reproductive technologies have also emerged, shedding new light on kinship (Fonseca, 2008; Sanz et al., 2013), challenging legal and biomedical fields, and impacting the production of subjectivities. At the same time, emerging views position care as a social organization that involves not only families and the market, but also the State and communities (Faur, Esquivel and Jelin, 2012; Martínez, 2007; Batthyány, 2013).

In the workplace, individuals have had to adapt to contexts of significant deregulation and structural instability, accompanied by long workdays and lengthy commutes, particularly in sprawling Latin American cities. This has led mothers and fathers to experience daily lives overloaded with responsibilities and to perceive that they have very little time to spend with their children (Caro et al., 2017; Vergara, Sepúlveda, and Salvo, 2019). In the recent context of the pandemic, these responsibilities, as well as the feminization of care work, have intensified dramatically, both globally and in Latin America (Arteaga-Aguirre et al., 2021).

Demographic studies in the region, despite local differences, show a decrease in the number of children and in the age at which people have their first child. This is a result of changes in notions of gender, family, and childhood, as an alternative to maintain greater control over increasingly precarious lives, and as a response to the demands of parenthood that is increasingly being shaped by expert normative patterns (Faircloth, 2014; Shirani et al., 2012).

Furthermore, the region is experiencing, to varying degrees, a growing deinstitutionalization of the family and an increase in formal and de facto separations. This has led to a dissolution, both empirically and conceptually, of the strict association between cohabitation, legal marriage, and parenthood, as well as between the conjugal couple and the parental couple. The increase in migration from Latin America and the Caribbean, both within the region and to countries in the Global North, has also contributed to challenging these associations, insofar as many couple and parental ties persist despite the dissolution of co-residence (Baldassar and Merla, 2014). At the same time, migration is demanding the exercise of motherhood and fatherhood in new contexts and generating forms of discrimination and social control that involve questioning the caregiving capacities of migrant parents. Some of these discriminations related to motherhood and fatherhood are exercised from the health sector, which, in our countries, has difficulties in processing and understanding ethnic-cultural diversity, considering both migrants and those who are part of native peoples.

Within this framework, we also witness diverse ways of inhabiting the bonds between ages and generations, which are expressed, among other aspects, in the relationships between parents and children; and in the ways we understand contemporary childhoods and their capacities for agency (Cortés-Morales, 2020; Chávez and Vergara, 2017; Montreuil et al., 2018). However, an expectation of obedience persists, along with practices of physical and psychological abuse toward children, and contradictory demands placed on mothers and fathers have increased, as they are required, at the same time, to promote autonomy while simultaneously increasing control and surveillance over their children (Pain, 2006; Faircloth, 2014). On the other hand, the intensification of criticism of the systems of internment of children with difficulties related to care by their family has given new strength to the theme of adoption, present since the beginning of the 20th century, as well as to foster families, which offer new problems and questions for the social sciences.

Based on our analysis, we believe it is relevant to consider parenthood in the region as situated processes and practices (Morgan, 1996), rather than from ahistorical and normative notions that predefine the bonds and their contexts. Likewise, we believe it is important to imagine ways in which the practice of parenthood in Latin America and the Caribbean can be transformed, from approaches that support collective, not merely individual, responsibility for the care and upbringing of new generations, as well as opening up to new, democratizing relational possibilities regarding age, generation, gender, sexual diversity, ethnicity, and other aspects.

Notes:

1. Term coined by Todaro (2002) to broaden the perspective on labor rights related to maternity and, subsequently, extended in Latin America to give visibility to the gender dimension of parenthood.

As previously stated, the proposed Working Group aims to discuss and highlight existing knowledge about motherhood and fatherhood in the region, conceiving of them as a socio-historical phenomenon and observing them from critical and intersectional perspectives (1). We understand these to be complex practices, socially and historically shaped by economic, class, gender, sexual orientation, generational, age, and ethnic factors, among others, thus warranting situated studies for a deeper understanding. Along these same lines, we consider it essential to engage with current discussions within the fields of public policy and social movements, such as feminist movements and those related to care, sexual dissidence, the rights of migrants, and others.

Parenthood is contested in our societies, and such disputes can be understood as conflicts for hegemony (2), insofar as they implicitly or explicitly carry certain projects of society and subjectivity. What is at stake is precisely the formation of new subjects, as well as what can be understood and put into practice as public or private in the relationship between families, the State, and society. Therefore, we are also interested in discussing and making visible the knowledge related to the forms of intervention that the State and social movements and organizations deploy around parenthood. Parenthood practices are woven together in different spaces, where not only people linked by biology but also by affection converge, along with other actors such as the State, the market, social movements and organizations, and other care communities (Vega, Martínez, Paredes, 2018).

Furthermore, in a diverse and heterogeneous context like Latin America and the Caribbean, and with processes that are often incompletely secularized (Bárcenas, 2011), it is important to be attentive to the aforementioned conservative positions that codify families and parenthood according to a particular family and sexual morality. Similarly, we consider it essential to play an active role in the training of new generations of researchers and professionals, since normative and conservative disciplinary perspectives have tended to predominate in our countries.

Furthermore, we believe it is relevant to rethink the place of children in relation to parenthood, questioning their characterization as intrinsically dependent. We are interested, rather, in thinking about logics of interdependence (Romero Mikkelsen and Christensen, 2009; Butler, 2006 and 2010) and in relationships of care and socialization (James, 2013) that are contingent, positional, and contextual, and in which children operate not as passive recipients, but as material and symbolic agents, as well as profoundly ethical ones (Vergara, Sepúlveda, and Salvo, 2020).

In Latin America and the Caribbean, on the other hand, there is a considerable body of work on the topic of motherhood and fatherhood, viewed from critical perspectives (for example: Fonseca, 2015; Villalta, 2010; Murray and Tizzoni, 2021). However, a common identity has not yet been established, and discussions usually take place within the context of activities related to other themes. At the same time, the weakness of our publishing industry means that many works are accessible only to a limited number of people. In this context, there is a need to contribute to the development of a shared identity around a Latin American and Caribbean field that, without being entirely autonomous, can generate collective work that facilitates ongoing learning.

The proposal is based on the work initially developed by the Chilean Network for Social Studies on Parenthood (2015-2019) and the subsequent Latin American Network of the same name (REDES190011, ANID; 2019-2022). This latter network has brought together researchers from six countries in the region and has been a first step toward the exchange of knowledge, both locally and within global contexts. Within the framework of this network, several activities have been carried out: the publication of two special issues in Latin American journals (3), a research internship at the Center for Studies on Inequalities, Subjects, and Institutions (CEDESI) at UNSAM, Argentina, and the organization of discussion panels at international academic events (LASA 2021 and 2022). The network's in-person meeting will take place in Santiago, Chile, this coming November.

The current proposal from the CLACSO Working Group on Critical Studies of Motherhood and Fatherhood seeks to broaden the thematic and territorial scope of the previous network, including researchers from new countries, among them those in North America and the Caribbean, in addition to those who investigate the region's processes from Europe. Likewise, it proposes a dialogue with social and/or grassroots organizations, enabling the collective circulation and discussion of knowledge. It thus proposes a theoretical and methodological challenge: to think collectively, in a situated and embodied way (Haraway, 1991), about the motherhood and fatherhood practices being exercised in our Latin American and Caribbean realities and the power dynamics that shape them.

Within this framework, the proposal aims to strengthen and disseminate a critical and intersectional understanding of motherhood and fatherhood in the region for research and intervention in this area. Based on the experience and expertise of the team presenting it, four areas are emphasized: a) gender and sexual dissidence, b) childhood, c) migration, and d) intercultural health. We are interested in disseminating and discussing the knowledge produced in these areas. The first area focuses on knowledge aimed at understanding and transforming gender and sexual inequalities and stereotypes in the care and upbringing of children, and involving diverse and widespread actors in their provision. The second area focuses on understanding the links between ways of experiencing childhood in the region and motherhood and fatherhood, taking into account the perspectives of children and their contribution to care and socialization processes. Regarding the third topic, knowledge that facilitates the understanding and transformation of the structural and symbolic conditions in which migrants are exercising their motherhood and fatherhood, including the processes of discrimination experienced in this area; and, in relation to the fourth topic, knowledge relating to the understanding and alleviation of cultural conflicts that occur in the health field around motherhood and fatherhood and how their systems try to influence them in different ways.

Notes

1.-The notion of intersectionality, initially formulated by Crenshaw (1989), within the framework of feminist studies, but later extended to other fields of social sciences, recognizes the complexity and contextuality of the ways in which diverse forms of social relations, such as gender, social class, ethnicity and others, are articulated with respect to subjects or social situations, and in particular, the forms of inequality that derive from them.

2.- For Gramsci (1981, 1984) hegemony has to do with the economic, political and cultural predominance of one class over another, through the combination of forms of imposition and persuasion, and that other authors, such as those of British cultural studies, were extending to other forms of domination, such as those derived from gender, "race", ethnicity and age relations (Jenks, 2005; Williams, 2009).

3.- The special issues are: a) Vol. 20, No. 1, January-April 2022, of the Latin American Journal of Social Sciences, Childhood and Youth and b) August 2022 issue of the journal Psicologia em Estudo.