"Per aurem intrat Christus in Mariam". Aproximación iconográfica a la "conceptio per aurem" en la pintura italiana del Trecento desde fuentes patrísticas y teológicas

La tesis mariológica de la conceptio per aurem, según la cual la Virgen María habría concebido a Jesucristo por el oído en el momento de escuchar del ángel el mensaje celestial anunciándole que, sin perder su virginidad, sería madre del Hijo de Dios encarnado, ha merecido hasta ahora muy pocos estudios académicos rigurosamente fundados en fuentes primarias. De hecho, en la literatura especializada son muy escasas las referencias a tal teoría y, cuando algún estudioso la evoca, casi siempre se contenta con aludir a ella, sin aportar pruebas documentales. Sin embargo, tal como lo revelan las nueve pinturas italianas aquí analizadas, esa teoría fue ilustrada mediante sutiles metáforas visuales en muchas obras pictóricas medievales, las cuales se inspiraron en una sólida tradición literaria. Además una pléyade de Padres de la Iglesia y teólogos medievales testimonia, mediante afirmaciones explícitas, que semejante teoría gozó de notable aceptación entre los maestros del pensamiento cristiano. Basándose en numerosos textos patrísticos y teológicos, este artículo intenta dos objetivos esenciales: exponer, ante todo, las distintas formulaciones teóricas propuestas por esos pensadores; y además, tratar de poner en luz los significados dogmáticos que subyacen bajo esa sorprendente tesis.

Return Migration in the Ecuadorian and Bolivian population: motivations, strategies and discourses

This article analyses the motivations for return migration among the Ecuadorians and Bolivians who, after living in Spain, returned to their countries of origin during the economic crisis that started in 2008. From the analysis of 22 interviews in-depth which took place in Ecuador and 38 in Bolivia to women, men and young people from migrant families, this decision-making process is shown to be embedded into a gendered dynamics of relationships. Particular detail is given to affective and economic elements that had an influence on the decision to return, as well as to the strategies deployed to project their readjustment back in origin. Males and females occupy differential positions within the family, work and social circle, their expectations being built in a gendered manner. Despite the fact migration has brought women greater economic power within the family group, their reintegration upon return redefines their role as main managers in the household and the dynamics that allow their social reproduction. Men, for their part, aspire to refresh their role as providers in spite of their frail labour position upon return. Social mobility for females is passed on through generations by a strong investment on education for their daughters and sons, while for males this mobility revolves around setting up family businesses and around their demonstrative abilities.

Understandings of transnational families in debates on Migration and development

International migration sets in motion a range of significant transnational processes that connect countries and people. How migration interacts with development and how policies might promote and enhance such interactions have, since the turn of the millennium, gained attention on the international agenda. The recognition that transnational practices connect migrants and their families across sending and receiving societies forms part of this debate. The ways in which policy debate employs and understands transnational family ties nevertheless remain underexplored. This article sets out to discern the understandings of the family in two (often intermingled) debates concerned with transnational interactions: The largely state and policydriven discourse on the potential benefits of migration on economic development, and the largely academic transnational family literature focusing on issues of care and the micro-politics of gender and generation. Emphasizing the relation between diverse migration-development dynamics and specific family positions, we ask whether an analytical point of departure in respective transnational motherhood, fatherhood or childhood is linked to emphasizing certain outcomes. We conclude by sketching important strands of inclusions and exclusions of family matters in policy discourse and suggest ways to better integrate a transnational family perspective in global migration-development policy.