Abstract

GALINDO MENESES, Eduardo Abedel  and  MACEDA RODRIGUEZ, Emilio. The Double Meaning of Domestic Spaces: The Everyday Life of Heteronormative Families in the City of Tlaxcala, Mexico. Antipod. Rev. Antropol. Arqueol. [online]. 2022, n.46, pp.179-200.  Epub Mar 03, 2022. ISSN 1900-5407.  https://doi.org/10.7440/antipoda46.2022.08.

Abstract: The logic of domestic space is alien to the logic of private life. Domestic spaces, which harbor heteronormative family arrangements and relations, are subject to inequalities and contradictions. However, at the same time, they build bonds and ties of reciprocity and solidarity. This double meaning invites us to rethink the definition of domestic space under an epistemic and political order different from that of modern social theory that defined them as private spaces. To examine this double meaning of domesticity, we examine the daily lives of six heteronormative two-parent families in the city of Tlaxcala, Mexico. The empirical data is the product of a broader investigation that provided insight into the everyday life of these families. We inquired about the distribution of domestic and care work via informal discussions in their homes. The research was conducted between January and April 2017 in the city of Tlaxcala, located in the south-central part of the state of Tlaxcala, Mexico. In particular, and based on a gender perspective, the present analysis focuses on understanding the ways in which these families appropriate their space and reproduce this appropriation. This article concludes that domestic space needs to be conceptually reconstructed, and that ambiguous family relationships that are made invisible through expressions of solidarity or reciprocity, as well as through heteronormative imaginaries and subjectivities, must be dismantled. Depending on gender, age and role, the reproduction and appropriation of domestic space is not the same for each member of the families analyzed. Domestic space is not explained by the traditional understanding that categorizes the domestic as private. The article offers a new definition of domestic space, whose epistemic axis is the double meaning that this space signifies and that is described in families’ everyday life and narratives.

Keywords : Daily life; domestic space; gender; families; Mexico; private space..

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