The Maternal Contract - A Subaltern Response to Extreme Violence in the Americas

In The Maternal Contract, Elva F. Orozco Mendoza traces the mobilization of mothers'' organizations that first emerged in the 1970s as distinctive modes of collective action against state violence in the Americas. Drawing on the insight and work of four mothers'' organizations, Orozco Mendoza introduces a novel theoretical framework to illustrate how these organizations create and advance their own caretaking structures in the absence of substantive political rights and representation. While these organizations emerged in different times and geographies, Orozco Mendoza argues that they are linked by a powerful commitment to protect subaltern social groups and marginalized subjects against a sweeping violence-driven apparatus.