The dispositif of motherhood: media and pedagogical production of subjects, practices and norms

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the way in which a dispositif of motherhood is produced and updated in mediatic spaces to produce different maternal modes and, then, normative patterns. With this purpose, I make an enunciative analysis of two sets of materials: one, consisting of articles from the weekly magazines Veja and Caras about famous mother characters (Vera Fischer and Xuxa) captured between 1992 and 2003; and another one, made up of articles taken from the magazine Crescer, between January 2001 and July 2002. I state that this normativity is produced through the relationship between the maternal modes and through the way the mother-subjects from this dispositif relate to each other and to the father-subjects.