Surviving Everyday Violence: Motherwork and Curated Socialization at Peru's Urban Margins

• In Event: 30655 - Race, Class, and Gender

Abstract

This study examines the survival strategies employed by women in Puerto Nuevo, a marginalized urban neighborhood in Callao, Peru, characterized by high rates of violence and poverty. Through 16 months of ethnographic research and 38 interviews with local women, the research explores how mothers engage in motherwork as a means of protecting themselves and their children from various forms of violence, including interpersonal, criminal, and state-sanctioned. The findings reveal that women utilize a form of “curated socialization” to teach their children how to navigate the dangers of their environment. This includes spatial socialization techniques such as enclosing children at home, limiting their movements, and carefully selecting their associations. Mothers also engage in constant surveillance and communicate survival know-how to their children. In some cases, they resort to physical discipline or even violence as a form of protection and care. The study challenges existing narratives about marginalized women as passive victims, instead highlighting their agency and resilience in the face of structural inequalities and institutional neglect. It also contests the notion that poor families rely solely on "natural growth" in child-rearing, demonstrating that these mothers actively cultivate survival skills in their children. By focusing on the gendered dimensions of survival strategies and the intersectionality of violence experienced by women in Puerto Nuevo, this research contributes to a more nuanced understanding of how people at the urban margins survive. It emphasizes that survival in these contexts involves far more than generating economic means, requiring complex strategies to confront constant threats of violence and insecurity.

Author

• Andrea Roman Alfaro, University of New Mexico