(Marvelous lactation and milk brothers in literature)

Abstract

Feeding constitutes a material and symbolic complex network, framed and developed within a cultural and social system. Human beings stablish contact through eating, and more concretely with lactation as medium, with the material and representative universe. Both the complexity of nursing and the biological value of milk, portray lactation as a very thick meal. To analyze and approach lactation, this must be understood as entity, as a material unity actively operating through the eating contact, in its physical, social, and symbolic levels. Literature constitutes a productive arena to inquire about the agency of lactation as the vibrant and vital, creator of bodies and the bonds that operate on those bodies. This article works within an interdisciplinary and comparative theoretical-methodological frame. The concept of “vibrant matter” from Bennet (2010) is applied on lactation; this allows to inquire on one of the most complex and emblematic meals, both in evolutionary as in social terms. With lactation thus understood, its functioning and development are comprehensively examined the plot of literature, specifically two tales from Argentina. It will be observed that the material dimension of lactation is sufficient to inspect its functionality, being literature the appropriate verbal net to unravel the profound significant power of lactation.