TY - CHAP
T1 - “Don’t bring me any chickens with sad wings”
T2 - Discipline, surveillance, and “communal work” in peri-urban childcare centres in Cochabamba, Bolivia
AU - Donovan, Cara
AU - Saxena, Alder Keleman
AU - Carpenter, Carol
AU - Humphries, Debbie
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2019 selection and editorial matter, Vicki Harman, Benedetta Cappellini and Charlotte Faircloth individual chapters, the contributors.
PY - 2018/1/1
Y1 - 2018/1/1
N2 - This chapter explores the experiences of feeding children outside the home within the context of feeding programmes at child centres serving children under six years old in Cochabamba, Bolivia. Data was collected through semi-structured interviews with staff and observations in kitchens and at parent meetings. Drawing on surveillance as a conceptual framework, we argue that these Bolivian child centre food programmes are a form of the state’s disciplinary power. In this system, administrators are instructed to increase or decrease the weight of children based on the results of medical monitoring of the children’s bodies. In state-supported child centres, discipline transfers to the mothers in the form of “communal work” between the government, child centre staff, and mothers. The programme’s staff manages mothers by imposing expectations on them, declaring moral judgments of success and failure, and displaying an overall mistrust of mothers’ feeding practices. Furthermore, the state programmes rely on the unpaid work of the mothers who are already experiencing the heavy burdens of financial and time poverty. The result is that a system meant to improve the nutritional status of children of low-income families may contribute to rising trends in obesity; and programmes meant to support working women rely on women’s work.
AB - This chapter explores the experiences of feeding children outside the home within the context of feeding programmes at child centres serving children under six years old in Cochabamba, Bolivia. Data was collected through semi-structured interviews with staff and observations in kitchens and at parent meetings. Drawing on surveillance as a conceptual framework, we argue that these Bolivian child centre food programmes are a form of the state’s disciplinary power. In this system, administrators are instructed to increase or decrease the weight of children based on the results of medical monitoring of the children’s bodies. In state-supported child centres, discipline transfers to the mothers in the form of “communal work” between the government, child centre staff, and mothers. The programme’s staff manages mothers by imposing expectations on them, declaring moral judgments of success and failure, and displaying an overall mistrust of mothers’ feeding practices. Furthermore, the state programmes rely on the unpaid work of the mothers who are already experiencing the heavy burdens of financial and time poverty. The result is that a system meant to improve the nutritional status of children of low-income families may contribute to rising trends in obesity; and programmes meant to support working women rely on women’s work.
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U2 - 10.4324/9781315206974-5
DO - 10.4324/9781315206974-5
M3 - Chapter
AN - SCOPUS:85082280719
SN - 9781138633865
SP - 63
EP - 83
BT - Feeding Children Inside and Outside the Home
PB - Taylor and Francis
ER -