Familia y género en los discursos de los Tribunales de Familia en Chile

This article examines the concept of family underlying the discourse of judges in Family Courts. Through a qualitative study based on a semi-structured interview, opinions were gathered from ten female judges and three male judges from Chile's Northern, Central, Southern, and Insular regions. These perspectives reflect the tensions between transformations and continuities in the concept of family, on the one hand, and a legal practice that tends toward stability, on the other. The family appears as an open signifier, shaped by a complex and sensitive synergy between societal and legal changes (including legislative, international, and jurisprudential developments) that produce a dynamic, elastic, and imprecise meaning. The legal concept of family integrates both conservative and progressive elements, accommodating new family forms (such as same-sex unions or multispecies families) alongside traditional structures (such as the extended family). Although the legal concept of family remains highly imprecise, our findings suggest the presence of a core meaning centered around care.