Peer-reviewed article
Nurturers of souls: Understanding Prayer as Care among Catholic Mothers in Kerala
Nandini Paliyath, Rowena Robinson ·
Summary
Written by AI, not yet AICS's view · claude-haiku-4-5-20251001This peer-reviewed paper examines how Catholic mothers in Kerala understand prayer as a form of care labour for their children. The study draws on fieldwork and theoretical frameworks to argue that spiritual practices like prayer should be recognized as integral to maternal care. The paper positions prayer as a form of self-formation and disciplining within a patriarchal context, and explores how mothers view prayer as more effective than physical provision of care.
Key points
- Prayer is understood by Catholic mothers as care labour, not separate from it
- Maternal prayer functions as both affective and effective action in mothers' lives
- Prayer serves as a primary recourse for maternal agency in patriarchal contexts
- Continuous, everyday prayer is considered more beneficial than material acts of care such as providing food
- Prayer sustains maternal love towards children and maintains community cohesion
Limitations
This is a qualitative ethnographic study focused on understanding maternal perspectives and does not evaluate outcomes for children's well-being or measure effects of prayer on child health, development, or protection. The document does not provide empirical data on whether prayer practices affect measurable indicators of child well-being.
Abstract
Drawing on fieldwork among Catholic mothers in Kerala, this paper critically reconstitutes the notion of maternal care labour to encompass spiritual acts of prayer. The physical and emotional care labour that mothers perform for their children have been researched. This paper brings together thinking on care labour with ideas of self-formation and piety à la Foucault (1982, 1997) and Mahmood (2005). Individual and communal prayer is integral to the disciplining and self-formation of women as Catholic mothers, and in a patriarchal set up, may be their primary recourse in the absence of other capacities for effective action. A Catholic mother’s love towards a child is mediated through God and sustained through constant prayer. Maternal prayer, even for adult children has more recently been invoked by the church as critical to the maintenance of community in a changing social and political environment. The paper argues that prayer must be taken seriously, and analytically included as an essential component of maternal care labour. Though typically described as formulaic and repetitive, the paper shows how for Catholic mothers, continuous, everyday prayer is not mere routine but both affective and effective, and considered more beneficial and instrumental than this-worldly acts of concern such as providing food or physical care.