Lower-class Women Research Articles

Work–life: balance?

Based on theories of the relations of labor and care, as well as previous research on the past 30 years of gender inequalities in Hungary, the paper aims to interpret these results and further develop the existing knowledge on the situation of women and gender relations in Hungarian society in the context of the social, economic, and political transformations of the past 30 years while considering the intersecting mechanisms ofemployment, family and care policies from a gender perspective. In 2017 we conducted six focus group interviews with lower-class women across the country and a representative survey on a sample of 1,000 respondents (both men and women), that will provide the empirical data for the paper. One of the core findings of the research is the striking tension that women experience on the labor market in relation to their care responsibilities incl. elderly care, especially in low-income and working-class groups. The counter-interest of the employers concerning care for dependent family members was a recurrent topic brought up by the participants of our interviews as well as the lack of expectations towards state support and towards men in the share of care work.

Unequal access to law school: a study of gender and class in Colombia

ABSTRACT This article explores the relationship between the quality of legal education in Colombia and the gender and socio-economic status of law students. This paper shows that women with low economic capital tend to be the most disadvantaged because they can neither afford the best private law programs nor pass the admission tests of the best public programs. By contrast, upper-class women are guaranteed access to high-quality education because they have the economic capital to enter the best private programs without having to overcome major academic filters. Given that most law students have limited economic resources, one could say that the feminization of legal education has been achieved at the expense of lower-class women who are forced to study in low-quality programs. In this regard, Colombian legal education reproduces gender and class inequalities instead of reducing them.

Tussle for Existence: An Inquisitive Exploration on the Role of Women in Sangati(Events)

Indian society is quite a complex one, because of its construction of hierarchal social order grounded on the premise of sophistication, social order and sex. Historically, women are placed at the margins that prevented them from having opportunities and denied them the flexibility to enter the general public sphere. This paper entitled “Tussle for Existence: An Inquisitive Exploration on the Role of Women in Sangati (Events)” which is a close to the accurate attempt to discern the penetrating expertise of lower-class women who passed through many unconditional subjugations from varied norms of the society, as well as Dalit women’s power of resilience to subdue these existing curtailments in the patriarchal social structure. Through the work, Sangati, Bama explores the lives of women, wherever caste and gender-based rights and rituals executed a women’s life as sacrificial fires. In her work Sangati, Bama, one among the predominant Dalit women writers, constitutes the themes of Dalit feminism and the celebrations of self-assurance within the community of subaltern women.

Protestants, Gender, and the Arab Renaissance in Late Ottoman Syria, by Deanna Ferree Womack

<i>Protestants, Gender, and the Arab Renaissance in Late Ottoman Syria</i>, by Deanna Ferree Womack

Sewing, Cycling, and Sociology

Sewing, Cycling, and Sociology

Nafisa: reivindicar los derechos de las mujeres a través de un personaje literario de Naguib Mahfuz

A partir del personaje literario femenino de Nafisa que aparece en la novela Principio y fin de Naguib Mahfuz, queremos poner de manifiesto la discriminación y la marginalidad que sufría la mujer árabe de clase media y baja en El Cairo antes de 1952, teniendo siempre presente su contexto. Utilizaremos como metodología el análisis cualitativo, para extraer datos suficientes, contextualizados desde el punto de vista social y cultural, transparentes y replicables. Tras el análisis podemos concluir que Mahfuz, a través del personaje de Nafisa, quiere revindicar los derechos de las mujeres y la considera una víctima social –dócil, generosa, sumisa y sin connotaciones negativas– en una sociedad murmuradora y de doble moral concebida por y para el hombre. La muerte de su padre y su fealdad no le permitirán que aspire a lo que las otras mujeres de su entorno pueden aspirar, y ello contribuirá a su trágico final.

Estratificação horizontal da educação superior no Brasil: desigualdades de classe, gênero e raça em um contexto de expansão educacional

O acesso ao ensino superior é fundamental para diminuir as desvantagens de pessoas com origens nos grupos menos privilegiados, na medida em que aumenta as chances de mobilidade social ascendente. A literatura sobre estratificação educacional nos ensina que tanto o acesso aos diferentes tipos de modalidade ofertada (bacharelados, licenciaturas, cursos tecnológicos) quanto quais cursos são escolhidos (medicina, administração ou pedagogia) influenciam as chances de alcançar os melhores empregos. Tendo em vista que os diferentes diplomas universitários não são iguais em termos das vantagens que trazem para os diplomados, e que há diferenças de acesso entre os cursos universitários em termos de classe, gênero e raça, o perfil de acesso a esses cursos deve ser analisado. Neste artigo, avaliamos de forma inédita e desagregada o padrão de expansão do ensino superior brasileiro e como se configuram as oportunidades no sistema. Mobilizando dados do Inep, nossos resultados apontam que pessoas com origem nos estratos mais altos (pais com ensino superior) tinham probabilidade significativamente maior de entrar nos cursos de maior prestígio (medicina, odontologia, engenharias etc.) e em instituições públicas do que pessoas com origem nas classes mais baixas. Também encontramos forte estratificação por gênero tendo em vista que homens têm maior probabilidade de entrar em cursos das ciências exatas e mulheres em cursos relacionados ao ensino e aos cuidados. A estratificação por gênero, no entanto, combina-se de forma não linear com a estratificação por classe de origem, na medida em que há cursos típicos de homens de classe alta, mulheres de classe alta, homens de classe baixa e mulheres de classe baixa.

A Rhetorical Narratological Approach to the Treatment of Crime and Criminals in Great Expectations

Bu çalışma, Charles Dickens’ın Büyük Umutlar (1861) romanında suç konusuna ve suçlu karakterlere odaklanarak romanın retorik-odaklı anlatıbilimsel bir incelemesini yapmayı amaçlar. Romanının okuyucu için bir suç ve suçlu anatomisi çizdiğine dikkat çeken birçok çalışma olmuştur, fakat romanın suçlu karakterlere farklı yaklaşımı ve bunun okuyucu üzerindeki olası etkileri pek fazla anlatıbilimsel bir dikkat çekmemiştir. Yasa önünde hepsi suçlu olarak nitelense de, Magwitch, Compeyson ve Molly karakterleri metinde farklı şekillerde konumlandırılmıştır. Eser, Magwitch karakterine yönelik okuyucuyu gerçek bir duygudaşlık hissine teşvik ederken, Compeyson’a karşı dinmeyen bir nefret duygusu, Molly’ye ise mutlak bir kayıtsızlık hissi uyandırır. Bu makalenin öne sürdüğü iddia, sosyal olarak kenara itilmiş bir karakter olan Magwitch’e yönelik sempatik tutumu ile yargı sistemindeki eşitsizliklere okurun dikkatini çekmeyi amaçlayan bu romanın yine de suç konusunda beklentileri ters yüz eden radikal bir yaklaşım öneremediği şeklindedir. Bunun nedenleri şöyle ifade edilebilir: ilk olarak, bir Oluşum romanı örneği olarak bu eser, bireyin topluma uyum sağlaması ile sonuçlanan ve eğitim sürecine vurgu yapan bir anlatı biçiminin sınırları içine sıkışmıştır. Ayrıca, “ima edilen yazar” sosyal anlamda kenara itilmiş diğer bir karakter olan Molly’yi merkeze koymak için hiçbir şey yapmaz. Alt sınıftan gelen bu kadın, metnin kenarlarında sessizleştirilmiş bir şekilde kalır ve “suçlu” olarak konumlandırılışı hiçbir biçimde tartışma konusu olmaz.

Hushed Voices: Views and Experiences of Older Women on Partner Abuse in Later Life

ᅟIntimate partner violence(IPV) in later life is a topic that is in its infancy in India. IPV among elderly women in particular has largely been overlooked by researchers as well as by the service providers primarily because the society doesn’t recognise IPV in later life. Moreover, it gets gleaned over because of the incertitude about categorising the violence inflicted upon elderly women by their partners under the fold of Elder Abuse(EA) or Domestic Violence(DV). People working in the area of Domestic Violence usually provide services to the women in their 20s and 30s and not to women older than 50 experiencing similar abusive relationships. People working in the area of Elder Abuse focus on abuse perpetrated by children and caregivers and not on abuse by partners. This confucion of categorisation has led to a complete neglect of this area of public health concern. The present exploratory study was designed to understand the causes, patterns and psychosocial consequences of IPV among elderly women (50 years and above). Using a multi-method approach, this qualitative study aims to identify key themes, and issues related to causes and consequences of IPV in later life. The data draws primarily from in-depth interviews with the survivors of abuse in later life and focus group discussions conducted with women of lower and middle class who are all 50 above. In addition to this, in-depth interviews were done with the key informants who are the service providers for such women. The survivors were chosen through critical case purposive sampling technique, while, the key informants were chosen using expert purposive sampling technique. For condensing the interviews, thematic analysis was performed. The results revealed that the perception of traditional gender roles in the society had led to preservation of women's subordinate position. When the participants of this research were growing up in the 1950s and 1960s, the social bounderies of gender were extremely rigid and the wives were expected to behave in a way that was acceptable for husbands. Abuse mostly started in early age and tended to continue in later life. But the form of abuse often changes as the couples became older. Physical abuse declined with age and was replaced by psychological abuse. Lack of support in old age and the stigma attached to divorce were the biggest restraining factors. Most women reported education and mass media as the primary agents of change. The psychological and social consequences included recourse to substance use, withdrawal from social life, low self- esteem, etc. The study has implications both for policy making and clinical practice.

Rosa Vogelstein and her work: in search of the sources of success of the Stettin Women’s Association (Stettiner Frauenverein) at the turn of the twentieth century

ABSTRACTAt the turn of the twentieth century, Stettin, the major city of the Prussian Province of Pomerania, was the home of the Stettin Women’s Association (Stettiner Frauenverein). It engaged in welfare work as well as educational activity using modern forms of social work focused mostly on supporting lower-class women and children. This article presents the results of research into the sources of success of this organisation. It is worth attention because the organisation was established in a city where, similarly to the entire province, women’s movement demanding changes to behaviour patterns attributed to sex and background did not attract much support. In the light of preserved archives, it was Rosa Vogelstein, the wife of a local rabbi, who wielded decisive influence on this and who with full awareness resigned from exposing her role in the establishment and operations of the association which led to the memory of her achievements gradually fading.

Runaway Wives, Urban Crimes, and Survival Tactics in Wartime Beijing, 1937–1949 by Zhao Ma

Reviewed by: Runaway Wives, Urban Crimes, and Survival Tactics in Wartime Beijing, 1937–1949 by Zhao Ma Elizabeth J. Remick Runaway Wives, Urban Crimes, and Survival Tactics in Wartime Beijing, 1937–1949 by Zhao Ma. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center, 2015. Pp. xiv + 366. $49.95 cloth. Zhao Ma’s Runaway Wives is a fascinating study of the ways that poor women in the slums of Beijing survived the wartime years of Japanese occupation and the Chinese Civil War (1937–1949). It contrasts the formal world of state, law, and social reforms with these women’s world of “an informal economy, customary practices, neighborhood networks, a hierarchical pattern of household authority, illegitimate relationships, and criminal enterprises” (p. 4). These aspects of poor women’s lives are usually absent from the formal administrative record, but Ma cleverly finds a window into them through his examination of the Beijing District Court’s case files related to “Offenses against the Institutions of Marriage and the Family” (p. 2)—in other words, bigamy, adultery, and abduction. From the records, we come to see a fine-grained picture of women using the meager resources at their disposal to struggle for survival, connection, and sometimes even happiness. This book is an important contribution to the field of research on the Japanese occupation and civil war. The scarcity of documentary evidence from that period can frequently make it difficult to study, but this book shows why it is crucial to do so. It brings to the fore people whose lives are routinely left out of conventional political and social histories. Of course what was happening in Beijing is not necessarily the same thing as what was happening elsewhere in the country, since the nature of Japanese colonial rule varied across Chinese puppet regimes and since other large swathes of the country were not occupied at all. Nevertheless, it highlights key issues related to gender, family, and economic survival among the people of the Beijing tenements. It does so by putting runaway wives at the center of the analysis and using their actions to shine light on an entire constellation of related social and economic issues. This move is accomplished in three main sections: poor women’s work and livelihood, the uses of neighborhood networks, and the consequences of increased mobility in the 1940s, respectively. [End Page 612] Ma argues that marriage was poor women’s most important survival strategy. This idea is perhaps not too surprising in that, in the Chinese patriarchal family system, a woman’s marriage was the key determinant of her future, and frequently marriage was an economic transaction between the bride’s family and the groom’s. But Ma takes this point even further. Poor women in the tenements could usually only find temporary and very low-paid employment, which meant that, unlike the “modern girls” and educated professional women who emerged elsewhere in China beginning in the 1920s,1 they were highly dependent on their husbands’ income for survival. Ma shows, however, that with some frequency poor women did not simply accept the fate handed to them by their marriages if their husbands were unable to support them in the way they wanted or needed. Some husbands deserted their wives and left them with no source of income, some lost their jobs, and some could not earn enough through the meager work available to support a family during increasingly dire economic times. In these situations, court records show that some women simply left their husbands and, without benefit of divorce, married again, this time choosing their mates on the basis of ability to provide sufficient food, shelter, and clothing. In short, wives who ran away from their husbands often did so as a means of seeking a better economic livelihood, not because they were embroiled in a romantic affair and running off with a lover. It became less risky for them to do so as Qing-era laws requiring execution or severe punishment for runaway wives were abolished in favor of laws from the Guomindang 國民黨 era, leaving such women open only to charges of adultery or bigamy. Lower-class women’s economic reliance on their husbands did not, however, mean that...

Beauty class and the practice of beautification among lower middle-class young women

Beauty class is a place for a woman to share experiences in applying makeup. The participants in the beauty class obtain tips and trick or some specific ways of applying makeup. The participants in this class can directly practice the knowledge on how to apply makeup on their faces. The beauty class phenomenon has existed in Indonesia since 2000. Beauty class becomes a trend which attracts young women. Beauty class becomes a place where ideal beauty is constructed, for instance, white skin for body and face, thick eyebrows, long eyelashes, pointed nose, oval face, and pink lips. This research aims to see the consumption practice by lower-class young women at the beauty class in Yogyakarta. This research uses ethnography method by attending and observing the beauty class and having an interview with two active participants in the beauty class. This research shows that 1). Makeup has become a part of the everyday lifestyle of young women. 2). Beautification practice is determined by some beauty standards identified by the other party, in this case, cosmetics industry, and beauty blogger. 3). Beauty class opens an access for lower-middle-class women to use a wide range of cosmetics palette and tools that beyond what they can afford.

Censura en el cine coreano. Deseo y muerte en "Hanyo" de Kim Ki-young

El cine coreano ha nacido y crecido bajo la sombra permanente de la censura a través de las distintas dictaduras que se han sucedido desde principios del siglo XX. En este contexto rescatamos la figura de Kim Ki-young a través de su película Hanyo, (La criada, 1960), para bucear en los mecanismos de la escritura fílmica con los que el cineasta es capaz de representar la atracción sexual a partir del potencial femenino que emerge con fuerza en su cine, con el fin de que la mujer abandone su posición sumisa e incorpore un rol activo en la representación de los valores sociales a través de la sexualidad. La sexualidad reprimida se convierte a su vez en cuestionable instrumento de poder, por lo que el elemento liberador es socialmente inaceptable. Esta doble lectura adquiere una cualidad simbólica que el cineasta aprovechará para construir su discurso. El presente análisis tiene como primer objetivo desvelar las peculiaridades culturales que afectan a la actuación de la censura en el país asiático, en tanto que su labor no se dirige tanto hacia explicitud de las imágenes como hacia a la atribución moral de las mismas; un segundo objetivo se plantea entender la incidencia inequívoca de otros mecanismos de autocensura social latentes en la obra de Kim Ki-young. Articulando una narración en “tres actos” que se despliega a lo largo de tres décadas diferentes —Hanyo (1960), Hwanyeo (1971) y Hwanyeo´82 (1982) —, Kim Ki-young revisita la representación de las bajas pasiones humanas con el fin de ofrecer al espectador una mirada poliédrica del dilema moral que supone la represión sexual. A través del análisis realizado se comprueba cómo el cineasta secciona con precisión quirúrgica los dramas humanos, en un ejercicio de inteligente caligrafía cinematográfica, capaz de sortear las íntimas peculiaridades de la censura.

At Home on the Margins: Care Giving and the ‘Un‐homely’ among Casablanca's Working Poor

AbstractIn this article I examine some of the ways in which giving and receiving care on the margins of Casablanca become ambivalently constituted acts inscribed in a context of historical trauma and growing economic insecurity. Within this context I explore the usefulness of “un‐homely” as a conceptual tool for discussing forms of domestic care on the margins of a growing urban center. Drawing on fieldwork material gathered during 2013–2014 in a marginalized and criminalized neighborhood in Casablanca, I use an ethno‐historical approach to unpack the production of marginalization and poverty, and explore which forms of care are available to urban lower class women in particular. With the help of my closest interlocutor, Amina, I offer a discussion on the labor of caring, for oneself and of others, as well as the particular affect associated with this labor. I suggest that such skilled routines of caregiving do not only function as a coping mechanism for women in precarious situations, but they reproduce affects of un‐homeliness as much as they contain them. I argue that it is this ambivalent weaving, between containment and acceptance, that ultimately serves to help make precarious homes and uncertain futures livable.

The Seventeenth Century English Lower-Class Women’s Theatricality and Transgression in The Witch of Edmonton

The Seventeenth Century English Lower-Class Women’s Theatricality and Transgression in The Witch of Edmonton

Street Cries and Street Fights: Anna Magnani, Sophia Loren and the popolana

ABSTRACTThis essay (and the accompanying video-essay) analyses the vocal and bodily performances of Anna Magnani and Sophia Loren across a series of scenes from four films – Campo de’ fiori (Mario Bonnard, 1943), L’oro di Napoli (Vittorio De Sica, 1954), Pane, amore e … (Dino Risi, 1955) and Ieri, oggi, domani (Vittorio De Sica, 1963) – in which both actresses play street traders. The characters played by Magnani and Loren in these films (and numerous others) have been variously described as popolane. I begin by considering how, in the context of Italian star studies, the popolana has typically come to be understood as a lower-class woman of the people. With the help of video-essay analysis, I then move beyond this simplified view of the popolana to consider how specific elements of Magnani and Loren’s performance styles help to bring this archetype to life.

English

Samuel Richardson's Pamela (1740) discusses the tribulation of a lady servant and her triumphs against the vicious young master while both Daniel Defoe's Moll Flanders (1724) and Roxana (1744) present the distress of two low-class women in the eighteenth-century man’s world with great drive to champion for good fortune. All three novels are clear discussions of eighteenth-century femininity and domestic issues. Yet, the literature review is absent of specific discussions on ideas and types of masculinity during the eighteenth century, particularly its power operationalization. Hence, this paper aims to associate the operationalization of masculine power and the presence of heterotopias, which is linked heavily to the period’s emphasis for politeness. The eighteenth-century English politeness, I argue, is instrumental at constructing masculinity and those without are emasculated of their manliness. As such, this paper depends on socio-historical framework as means to trace eighteenth-century masculine power which is enabled by specific heterotopias. Masculine power is firstly analysed through the use Fairclough’s Three-tier Analysis Framework. Then, types of heterotopias are identified and evaluated in order to associate the presence of this variant with the operationalization of masculinity by using Foucault’s heterotopia where this paper shows that certain heterotopias are the enablers of both desired and deviant masculinity. The novelists also pay different focus in urban and rural heterotopias. Finally, characters’ choice for certain heterotopias empowers deviance and desired masculinity. DOI: http://doi.org/10.17576/gema-2017-1701-09

Possessed for Success: Prosperity Buddhism and the Cult of the Guardians of the Treasure Trove in Upper Burma

Following the global spread of capitalism from the early 1990s, individualistic, non-institutionalised prosperity religion and ‘occult economies’ have emerged throughout the world, including South-East Asia, but have seemingly not yet been investigated with respect to Burma/Myanmar. This article focuses on the cult of the guardians of the treasure trove – a form of ‘prosperity Buddhism’ – in Upper Burma, wherein predominantly business women of lower middle classes perform possession dances to become successful in business. It has partly evolved from the lower status ‘traditional’ possession cult of the 37 Lords. The aim of this article is threefold. Firstly, it examines novel kinds of ‘Buddhicised’ possession rituals of higher status that discard religious specialists. These practices represent a democratisation of public spirit-mediumship and provide a route for success in business, agency and empowerment. Secondly, it is demonstrated that these cults seek to preserve Buddhism in the face of the current rapid changes in Burma. Thirdly, this article shows how these novel cults emerged in dynamic interplay with recent economic, social and political changes in Burma, as well as an increasing impact of globalisation.

Runaway Wives, Urban Crimes, and Survival Tactics in Wartime Beijing, 1937–1949 by Zhao Ma

Reviewed by: Runaway Wives, Urban Crimes, and Survival Tactics in Wartime Beijing, 1937–1949 by Zhao Ma Maura Elizabeth Cunningham Zhao Ma. Runaway Wives, Urban Crimes, and Survival Tactics in Wartime Beijing, 1937–1949. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center, 2015. 366 pp. $49.95 (cloth). Zhao Ma Opens Runaway Wives, Urban Crimes, and Survival Tactics in Wartime Beijing with the oft-quoted words of historian Laurel Thatcher Ulrich: "Well-behaved [End Page E-28] women seldom make history." Though Ulrich's statement has been so intensely merchandised as to become trite (Ma spotted it on a bumper sticker), historians seeking to write history "from the bottom up" know it nevertheless carries more than a ring of truth. Well-behaved women—especially well-behaved poor and illiterate women—seldom make it into the archives; they rarely leave behind a documentary trail that would enable us to integrate their stories into historical narratives. The stories that are captured are of ill-behaved women, those who have somehow transgressed the rules of society or the state and thus been written about in newspapers and court documents. Though their cases may be few in number and not representative of women's experiences across the whole of a given society, these unruly women have left behind archival traces that enable us to "make history" as best we can. Ma trains his eye on the unruly lower-class women of wartime Beijing, who have not left behind diaries or personal accounts of their lives. Instead, they speak through cases found in the "Offenses against the Institutions of Marriage and the Family" records from the Beijing District Court between 1939 and 1949. Ma uses these files to understand the hardships that women faced in the war-torn city and the survival tactics they employed to overcome them, as well as how the Japanese and Nationalist states (and, at the very end, the Communist state) responded to those actions. For the vast majority of women living in Republican Beijing, economic struggles were a way of life (chapter 1). Social reformers viewed the city's high poverty rate (at least 50% and possibly as high as 75%, even before the war with Japan broke out) with alarm, regarding poverty as an impediment to national productivity and the development of a body politic.1 In the absence of a large industrial sector, however, Beijing's lower-class women did not have the opportunity to engage in the type of formal occupation (zhiye 職業) that the reformers encouraged. Instead of joining the factory line, poor women generally engaged in flexible and informal work arrangements, such as taking in washing, ironing, or mending. Ultimately, though, women were financially dependent on their husbands, and when those spouses failed to provide for the household during times of hardship, some women responded by running away and remarrying (chapter 2). As Ma explains, this was a survival tactic, not a feminist statement: "Runaway wives were hoping to find a solvent husband … it never occurred to them to resist the domestic hierarchy itself" (116). In the face of wartime instability and shortages, women whose spouses were good providers enjoyed some measure of security. In chapter 3, "Women in the Tenements," Ma explores the physical world of Beijing's lower-class women, who lived in the city's crowded alleyway homes. Migration from the countryside in the early twentieth century—itself a survival tactic for both men and women seeking escape from even more difficult conditions at home—had swelled Beijing's population, but available housing stock failed to keep pace with this increase. As a result, tenement neighborhoods grew ever more crowded. For many women, physical closeness with their neighbors also yielded intimate social networks, often built on the basis of shared kinship or native-place ties. These relationships [End Page E-29] enabled women to turn to trusted neighbors for assistance in times of trouble. In many of the runaway wife cases Ma recounts, the unhappy wife sought counsel and help from a neighbor woman who then played the role of matchmaker, aiding her escape from the original union and then introducing the woman to her second husband. In establishing these new marriages, runaway...

Families in War And Peace: Chile from colony to nation by Sarah C. Chambers

Reviewed by: Families in War And Peace: Chile from colony to nation by Sarah C. Chambers Sandra Collins Families in War And Peace: Chile from colony to nation. By Sarah C. Chambers. Durham: Duke University Press, 2015. Since the 1980s familial networks and gender have been growing as a way of interpreting history in Latin America. Numerous studies have demonstrated how family bonds among elite Creole were later exploited in the struggle to separate from Spain. This was particularly visible in Chile, where the colonial economy had been held up by a kinship pattern of marriages between Chilean-born daughters and Spanish immigrants. Mary Lowenthal Felstiner's work on kinship politics and family metaphors was the first to show how family and politics were entwined during the shift to Independence in Chile, and how language connected to family and politics became a tool to unify elite families in their desire to break away from the crown. In Families in War and Peace: Chile from colony to nation, Sarah Chambers extends this analysis to the use of familial rhetoric in nation formation, arguing that it was equally instrumental in re-forging links devastated by the ongoing wars of the early nineteenth century. While studies on Chilean nation building have tended to date issues of family regeneration to the Conservative era beginning in 1830, Chambers demonstrates that it was a central consideration in the establishment of a stable government and society even during the tumultuous years directly following the wars of Independence. The objective of a "greater Chilean family" underpinned the formation of policies consciously designed to gain support and legitimacy for the fledgling nation. Paternal governance, so often cited as key to the endurance of Spanish hegemony in the Americas, was carried over to the ad hoc judicial systems of the Patria Vieja, and was later consolidated through courts that resolved property disputes, provided military pensions and dealt with legal disputes over family maintenance and custody. Chambers shows how Republican rhetoric was related to the family, and that this was increasingly utilised by non-elite members of society. Interesting examples of this are given in Chapter Six, when appeals from lower class women looking for child support for children out of wedlock or military pensions are shown to allude to paternal responsibility and even the legacy of slavery. With the onset of Liberalism in the second half of the nineteenth century, appeals to the mercy of a father figure began to fall on deaf ears. Legal reforms initiated by the Civil Code of 1855 saw a shift to the perception of poor women and children without access to family networks as "a potential labour force who should better earn their keep by working, often in the households of their social betters" (212). Such insights are profound when attempting to understand the patriarchal authority that continues to be the subject of speculation today. One of the book's greatest strengths is the way in which the structure allows for the multi-levelled discourses, negotiations and disputes to weave in and out of the discussion. The chronology that dictates events in Chile is the life of Javiera Carrera, sister of the Liberators Juan José, José Miguel and Luis. While her brothers had all died by 1821, Javiera lived until 1862 and bore witness to the multiple governments, wars and constitutions that shaped the lives of so many families. An analysis of her letters and correspondence offers a window to contemporary readers on the intricacies of relationships, the way events and decision-making could manipulate and be manipulated, and the way power was maintained through kinship relations though generations. Returning to Javiera's story throughout the book demonstrates the complex routes that negotiations of gender and one's role in the family could take, and demonstrates the complex engagements between individuals and government. The overarching structure is divided into two parts. The first part, "Families and War," shows how families mobilised politically and activism was carried out based on gender roles and place in the family during the years of Independence; while "Reconciling the National Family" traces state formation from 1823 to the 1850s. The traditional linear presentation of time helps the reader contextualise...