Adam Warren discusses ways in which Catholic priests used different types of gender ideals based on ethnic differences, notions of maternal intuition, and religious and moral sensibilities to advocate the practice of cesarean sections on indigenous Andean women in Peru. Alexandra Puerto examines the material causes of poor public health, focusing on how the organization and structure of plantation economies and labor creates high infant mortality rates in rural communities, specifically a henequen plantation in Yucatán, Mexico. Tamera Marko examines ways white upper class slave-owner parents, black slave wet nurses and black male folkhealers in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, used the same ideals of motherhood and maternal instincts, as well as images of barbaric and “unfit” mothers, to negotiate their “fitness” and thus, their rights to be a mother, to be “free”, to be a citizen.

This work also contributes to broader historiographies about Catholic pastoral campaigns, rural insurrection, independence, abolition, family, childhood, labor, and rural capitalist transition. It also sheds light on the historical origins of many debates about reproductive health, race, and citizenship, which continue to shape public policy in Latin America today.