Motherhood as a Refl ective Bodily Experience: Letter to a Child Never Born

Abstract

From a critical qualitative paradigm, this work starts from the methodological proposal of the corporal itineraries of Mari Luz Esteban (2004) to address the experiences and reflections that the journalist Oriana Fallaci raises in her work Carta a un niño que nunca nació (2000). This research uses motherhood as a category of analysis, deployed in three subcategories: 1) Demand or decision, 2) Corporeality as a reflexive experience, and 3) Other perspectives of motherhood. Thus, the maternal instinct is questioned as part of a woman’s inalienable identity, and Fallaci’s commitment to new ways of experiencing and positioning herself in the face of motherhood is highlighted, which allows her to make her way, and open the way and possibility for other women