The women of the family: shared worlds, worlds in conflict

Abstract

This work integrates an ethnographic study and the focus is the daily life of a multigenerational family, through the perspective of the three women of the family: grandmother, mother and granddaughter. The narratives about daily events, primarily about family relationships, registered during ten years, reveal aspects of the complex structure of communication. This shared world is able to produce meanings, but also to originate conflicts. From semi-structured interviews with the women: the grandmother, the mother and an adolescent daughter, risk conditions have been identified (violence and alcohol abuse) in the interpersonal relations orbit. It can be deduced that the roles are not well defined, what can be better expressed in the responsibilities transference cycle and authority. The atmosphere is tense, the violence is part of daily life, appears like a culminant point of conflicts, takes root in relationships, changes perceptions and, above all, makes communication difficult. It is possible to observe the strategies through which these women continue to affirm themselves as the center of the family's daily life and its future projects.