Birth control policies and agrarian reform in Chile: an analysis of journalistic discourse in the newspaper La Nación (1962–1970)

Abstract

This article empirically analyzes the discursive construction of birth control in Chile during the 1960s, in the context of the Agrarian Reform. It examines a selection of publications from the newspaper La Nación between 1962 and 1970, understood as a relevant actor in the production of public meanings and the official role of each government since its founding in 1917. The analysis identifies the centrality of technical-state discourse in the legitimization of family planning as a health and development policy, as well as the representation of the rural world as a priority area for intervention. The results show the lack of visibility of the experience of peasant women and the moral and religious tensions that ran through the public debate. The study contributes to the understanding of the press as a device for mediation between public policies, gender, and modernization in rural Chile in the 1960s.