Becoming a (Neuro)Migrant

Attachment, Early Stimulation, and the Government of the Future of Chile

Bibliographic Data

ID5419683
AuthorsGabriel Abarca-Brown (0000-0001-5369-1616, University of Copenhagen, corresponding author)
Year2025
Volume50
Issue1
Pages94-119
Publication date2025-01-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueScience Technology & Human Values (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0162-2439 • E-ISSN: 1552-8251
PublisherSAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1177/01622439231167665
OpenAlexW4364374427
LanguageEN
Citations received4
References cited45

The encounters between health institutions, practitioners, and Haitian and Dominican communities have triggered several frictions and conflicts in the public health system in Chile since 2010, especially in maternal child health. In this article, I explore the interactions between health institutions, "psy" technologies, and afro-descendant women registered in the "Chile Crece Contigo" program and how these interactions impact women's subjectivity and everyday lives. Developmental sciences, especially neurosciences, play a crucial role in the program by promoting comprehensive childhood development. I argue that the entanglements between attachment theory, neurosciences, and epigenetics gained authority for health practitioners and shaped migrants' representations of motherhood and child-rearing anchored in neurobiology. Although health institutions have encouraged the adoption of "cultural competencies," practitioners' interventions have tended to promote a neurobiological understanding of attachment and early stimulation, neglecting moral and contextual aspects involved in migrants' parenting practices. Interventions have delineated representations of "(ab)normal" motherhood and childhood, shaping moral ideals of children's development and a migrant citizenship project for the future of Chile. I also argue that by placing concerns on the table about migrant children's neurobiological development and social vulnerability, the program has shaped what some researchers call the "neuroscience of poverty

Citizenship · Developmental psychology · Governmentality · Political science · Politics · Poverty · Psychological intervention · Sociology · Child Welfare and Adoption · Children's Rights and Participation · Gender Studies · Indigenous Health, Education, and Rights · Psychology

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