Matronato? Gestiones maternales de protección estatal

Based on research on a state administration of minorities, that of the Preventional Juvenile Jurisdiction of the Argentine city of Córdoba, in this article these judicial actions are considered-observed ethnographically at the beginning of the 21st century- as maternal procedures. This implies not circumscribing legal parameters, and recognizing the correlation between the modes of exercise of power of that state administration with the forms that we are accustomed to consider proper to the exercise of maternal authority. This is a reflection on the state that emphasizes the gender that marks the actions of Protection – consecrated normatively and politically – given to children and adolescents and their (ir)responsable adults.