Home as the Third Place: Stories of movement among immigrant caregivers in an intercultural Chilean city

Abstract

Parenting practices are inherently related to the sociocultural and material contexts in which children and their caregivers live. Rooted in sociocultural perspectives, this research contributes to the study of contextualized caregiving by ethnographically examining the daily caregiving practices of seven low-income immigrant mothers and their young children. Research participants all live in a precarious material context in a Chilean intercultural city. This study illuminates how caregivers use their understanding of the world to make sense of their realities, both resources and constraints, and actively negotiate with the elements of everyday life. We discuss (a) the mobilizing effect of their hopes and dreams on potential future life (we refer to it as the Third Place), manifested in a constant search for a “better life” and (b) the personal and contextual resources that mothers draw on to provide physical care to their children, despite social constraints and scarcity of material resources.