Abstract
How much does mobility influence family relations in the Argentinean Andean highland? To what extent does the high number of both single mothers and female single parent domestic units depend on patterns of migration? This paper investigates the connection between dynamics of migration, domestic structures and the high presence of single mothers in two neighbour highland shepherds’ communities in the provinces of Salta and Catamarca, North West of Argentina. Ethnographic data, such as reconstructions of family relationships and transcriptions of stories of life, will help us to point out the multiple effects of migratory mobility on personal affective relations, that is, familiar and pair relationships, but also relations between the shepherds, their animals and the places of their ancestors.