Description
Breastfeeding and Kinship
Book Summary
This work proposes an ethnographic analysis focused on 19th and 20th-century Spain, exploring the cultural reality of the Pasiega peasant woman in her role as a domestic wet nurse for the country's more affluent classes. The author unveils a historically invisible female profession, examining paid breastfeeding not only as a nutritional and bodily practice, but as a social phenomenon capable of generating bonds of symbolic kinship. The reader will discover how breast milk, as a shared fluid, wove relationships that transcended the biological, connecting the history of women's work with the anthropology of kinship.
What is it about?
The book addresses the figure of the Pasiega wet nurse, women from the Cantabrian valleys who during the 19th and 20th centuries traveled to the homes of the aristocracy, the upper bourgeoisie, and the Royal Household to breastfeed the children of these families. Through ethnographic research, the work analyzes how this labor practice, almost invisible in historical records, involved complex representations of the female body, gestation, and infant feeding.
The author delves into the symbology of milk as a bodily fluid that, when shared, established a bond known as "milk kinship." This tie, recognized socially and culturally, generated obligations and affections that blurred the boundaries between the biological and the social, revealing an underexplored dimension of class and gender relations in contemporary Spain.
Main themes
- History of women's work and the invisibility of the wet nurse profession.
- Anthropology of kinship and social construction of family ties through milk.
- Cultural representations of the body, gestation, and infant feeding.
- Class and gender relations in 19th and 20th-century Spain.
- Historical ethnography of the Pasiega community and its role in Spanish society.
Who is it recommended for?
This book is aimed at students and researchers in social anthropology, sociology of the family, gender history, and food studies. It will also be of great interest to lactation professionals, historians interested in the daily life of the popular classes, and any reader curious to learn about a little-publicized facet of women's social history in Spain.
What this book contributes
- Makes visible a historically silenced female profession, providing a critical perspective on domestic and paid labor.
- Offers a rigorous anthropological analysis on how breastfeeding can generate kinship ties beyond biology.
- Provides a detailed ethnographic study of the Pasiega community, enriching the knowledge of Spanish cultural diversity.
- Connects social history with the anthropology of the body, showing the complexity of relationships between social classes through a daily practice.
Technical specifications
- Author: SOLER MUÑOZ, ELENA
- Publisher: ANTHROPOS EDITORIAL
- Language: Spanish
- Subject: SOCIOLOGY OF THE FAMILY AND SOCIAL RELATIONS, DIETETICS AND NUTRITION
- Collection: NO COLLECTION
- Weight: 200 g
Editorial review
This is a specialized work that provides a novel and well-documented look at the intersection between women's work, dietary practices, and the construction of kinship. Its ethnographic and historical approach makes it a useful reference for academics, while its accessible narrative can attract a general audience interested in the social history of women and class relations in contemporary Spain.