The Revista Uruguaya de Antropología y Etnografía (RUAe) has just launched a dossier on the relationships between breastfeeding and care practices, considering the intersection of social markers such as race, class, and gender. The dossier presents significant contributions to the field of studies on health, gender, and care in Latin America.
The dossier, organized by Natalia Fazzioni (IFF/Fiocruz), Marina Nucci (CLAM/IMS/UERJ), and Valentina Brena (UDELAR), was published in volume 10, number 2 (2025) of the journal, and is composed of six articles, a book review, and an interview.
The dossier was organized around three thematic axes. The first addresses discourses and representations of breastfeeding practices and their social repercussions in different social groups.
In this axis, there is the article by Olivia Nogueira Hirsch, “Biological, ‘milk’, and ‘madame’s’ children: life between care as obligation, help, and profession,” which discusses hierarchies of work and care.
There is also the article by Elisa Elsie Costa Batista da Silva Beserra, Ana Paula Sabiá, and Maria Ângela Pavan, “Breastfeeding in contemporary photoperformances and a brief overview of Western art history: goddesses, saints, and women,” which addresses the cultural and artistic representations involved in breastfeeding.
Still within this axis, the article by Camylla Sales da Silva Santana and Marcos Antonio Ferreira do Nascimento, “World Breastfeeding Week: presences and absences in the Brazilian campaign,” presents an analysis of the World Breastfeeding Week (WBW) campaigns, developed by the World Alliance for Breastfeeding Action, with the aim of encouraging and protecting lactation.
Finally, still in this axis, there is the review of the book A History of the Breast by Marilyn Yalom, written by Eliana Laurino Cadenasso, which revisits the chapters of Yalom’s work to reflect on the symbolisms surrounding the female breast, appropriated by different cultures and historical periods, in contexts ranging from science to art and eroticism.
The second axis addresses care and breastfeeding experiences that do not fit into hegemonic models, as occurs with various women and families in situations of social vulnerability. Olivia Hirsch’s article, “Biological, ‘milk’, and ‘madame’s’ children: life between care as obligation, help, and profession” is part of this thematic axis. The author conducts an ethnography based on the life experience of Janaína, her interviewee, who dedicated her life to unpaid and paid reproductive work. Hirsch demonstrates that different patterns of care are practiced according to contexts and that bonds of affection can form in professional experiences of lactation and care for other women’s babies
Also in this second axis, the article by Leticia Gil de Freitas and Beatriz Oliveira Santos, “Public Health and Penal Abolitionism: The National Breastfeeding Campaign exposing the problem,” analyzes how incarcerated women are excluded from breastfeeding promotion policies and campaigns carried out by the Ministry of Health in Brazil. The authors state that prisons do not guarantee adequate conditions for breastfeeding; furthermore, the racial and punitive logic that underlies incarceration contradicts the care and bonds necessary for breastfeeding. Freitas and Santos argue that adaptations are not enough, but rather the recognition that incarceration is an obstacle to the guarantee of rights.
The third axis focuses on issues related to the impacts and conflicts between medical and scientific knowledge and breastfeeding practices. Camila Correia’s article, “Producing humanity from donated milk: an analysis based on Human Milk Bank laboratory networks,” presents autoethnographic research on the milk donation process, in which the latter is transformed from “donated mother’s milk” into “human milk for universal use.” In the text, the author analyzes the networks, procedures, and possible conflicts and tensions involved in donation. Correia concludes that this process desubjectivizes the donation of breast milk.
Still in this axis, there is the article by Marcia Barbero Portela, Carolina de León Giordano, Ana Carrero del Cerro, Patricia Alvez, and Florencia Cerianiem, “Representations of mothers on newborn feeding in a public maternity hospital in Montevideo, Uruguay,” which presents results of ethnographic research conducted in a Uruguayan hospital on knowledge surrounding infant feeding by mothers. Thirty interviews and 11 observations were conducted in the second half of 2021. According to the authors, the research revealed that breastfeeding is a practice situated in a network of knowledge, experiences, and power relations, and not a natural or biological act. The study reveals that prolonged breastfeeding relies on collective supports that include health professionals.
The dossier is also integrated by an interview with Ester Massó Guijarro, an anthropologist and philosopher specializing in human lactation, conducted by the dossier’s organizers, Natalia Fazzioni, Marina Nucci, and Valentina Brena. Guijarro revisited important themes in her work, such as the political aspects related to breastfeeding and the Spanish feminist movement surrounding the theme.
*Text adapted from the presentation of the dossier “Lactancias humanas, cuidados e interseccionalidad,” authored by Natalia Fazzioni, Marina Nucci, and Valentina Brena.
Access the full dossier here.