Professors and researchers Ueslei Solaterrar (CLAM/IMS/UERJ) and Laura Lowenkron (CLAM/IMS/UERJ) published the article “‘I need to be well to take care of my child’: (Dis)encounters between race, motherhood, and madness,” in Antropolítica – Contemporary Journal of Anthropology of the Graduate Program in Anthropology at the Fluminense Federal University.
The article was published in the dossier Threatened Motherhoods: Inequalities, Violence, and Rights, organized by Natália Fazzioni, Carla Villalta, and Janaína Gomes. The editors place the dossier in the context of research by the Transnational Research Network on Destitute, Violated, and Abused Motherhoods, the Anthera Network, and the Bureaucracies, Kinship, Rights, and Childhood team, affiliated with the Political and Legal Anthropology Program at the University of Buenos Aires. These initiatives connect academic research and collaboration with social actors to broaden the debate on reproductive justice and contemporary forms of parenting.
Abstract of the article:
This article explores the (dis)encounters between race, motherhood, and madness through the analysis of two cases of Black women, socially perceived as mad, who were assisted at a Psychosocial Care Center (CAPS) III in Baixada Fluminense, Rio de Janeiro. The ethnographic account is based on the experiences of the first author, both as a researcher and as a mental health professional and manager between 2020 and 2022. The research materials included medical records, case reports, team supervision session notes, intersectoral meeting records, territorial supervisions, field diaries, photographs, as well as personal memories and emotional impressions stemming from the encounters with these women in the CAPS space of care and coexistence. The article examines the care strategies of the team, highlighting moments of support as well as the violence and failures that led to the violation of these women’s reproductive rights and their desire to mother. Based on a socio-anthropological and intersectional perspective, the analysis focuses on the state’s management of the desire and right to motherhood claimed by these women, as well as the violations of these rights and desires through the forced removal of their children. The article also shows how these women ceased to be “cases” and became a “cause” for the team, through their mischiefs, provocations, rebellions, and bold survivals in their effort to assert the desire and the right to be mothers.
Access the full article here.