“I’m tired of being a man”: peripheral paternity in Chilean mining work

Abstract

In this article we analyzed the implications of being a father who works shifts in the mining industry. Through interviews we concluded that these men, like other Latin American workers, share the uneasiness between the masculinity / head of household model and the responsibilities of responding to social demands. It was observed that the traditional symbols of power and unquestionable patriarchal authority have been unattended to in the father-son relationship, causing fracturing of said paradigm. Changes that devalue and discredit the father figure in family dynamics are accentuated by the high demands of the mining work schedule.