Ruptura conyugal y redefinición de espacios. Una aproximación interpretativa de la experiencia monoparental

Abstract

The different biographical and familiar episodes experienced by actors have been traditionally studied without taking into account the physical and symbolic scenes in which they take place. Nevertheless space is one of the most powerful parameters influencing our everyday family experiences, involving various dimensions (i. e., physical-territorial and socio-symbolic). As Kant has pointed out space is «the possibility of coexistence». The study of family paths by looking at their spatial-symbolic manifestations (physical and experienced) implies an analytical view considering space as a privileged focus for sociological introspection. This spatial view allow us to penetrate into the inter-subjectivitys world by putting into context our family life experiences in scenes we construct as a way of «filling», redefining, and emptying spaces of meaning. The aim of this paper is to show the analytic potential of this spatial view to study lone-parenthood caused by marital break-up. Based on the stories of divorced women extracted from my previous empirical research I explore the spatial-symbolic resolutions derived from their experience of lone-Parenthood as a process of family redefinition (i. e., family de-conjugalisation, division of spaces and moves, parental emptiness and construction of new lone-parental spaces).