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Decolonising and de-patriarchalising prison : governance, social life and gendered subjectivities in a women’s prison in Peru
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Bracco, Lucia (2020) Decolonising and de-patriarchalising prison : governance, social life and gendered subjectivities in a women’s prison in Peru. PhD thesis, University of Warwick.
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Official URL: http://webcat.warwick.ac.uk/record=b3492178~S15
Abstract
This study is based on a six-month ethnography research project at Santa Monica prison, the largest women’s prison in Lima, Peru. From a feminist and decolonial approach, the thesis investigates Santa Monica’s governance system and its implications on A) how the prison operates and B) the lived experiences of women prisoners; it does so, from a Global South perspective. My research seeks to contribute to prison studies and feminist criminology by providing an analysis that intersects prison governance, imprisonment’s social and subjective dynamics and gender in the Global South.
Broadly, I argue that the governance system politics is connected to and has implications for the social and subjective spheres of prisoners. Therefore, the macro-political dimension of the prison re-configures and impacts in its meso and micro dimensions. I propose that Santa Monica’s macro-political dimension operates through co-governance where the formal-legal and the informal-legitimised orders intertwine, transforming the top-down power imprisonment dynamics, making prison an ambivalent site of negotiation and interlegality. Those prisoners identified as delegates perform as intermediaries or “interface brokers” between the formal-legal and informal-legitimised orders.
The meso-social dimension refers to the most important social institutions of a system: in the case of Santa Monica, this refers to Religion and Labour, which function as common and valued social institutions for the authorities, prison staff and prisoners. I suggest that they are used as disciplinary tools, and simultaneously as liberating forces inside prison. Religion and Labour activities introduce and reinforce patriarchal gendered norms and roles that seek to re-feminise prisoners. At the same time, both religion and work also enable prisoners to engage in semiautonomous actions and to construct intersubjective, caring relationships that end up resisting imprisonment and enable women to re-affirm themselves.
The micro-intersubjective dimension of prison refers to social relationships and women’s gendered subjectivities, and these, I argue, also connect with the prison’s political structure. I propose that there is an ambivalent emotional climate inside prison, and prisoners flow between defensive mistrust and intimate trust. Despite the fact that prisoners are defensive, they engage in close interpersonal relationships of social reproduction and care, which I have identified centre around the notions of motherhood, sisterhood, homoerotic encounters and communities. Again, as in the meso-social dimension, the creation of intimate networks act as a disciplinary tool that seeks to transform women into “adequate feminine prisoners”. But at the same time, these provide a platform to critically question preceding patriarchal social norms, which subvert and transform women’s gendered subjectivities.
Item Type: | Thesis (PhD) | ||||
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Subjects: | H Social Sciences > HV Social pathology. Social and public welfare | ||||
Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH): | Women prisoners -- Peru -- Lima (Department) -- Social conditions., Reformatories for women -- Peru -- Lima (Department), Prisons -- Peru -- Lima (Department), Feminist criminology | ||||
Official Date: | March 2020 | ||||
Dates: |
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Institution: | University of Warwick | ||||
Theses Department: | Department of Sociology | ||||
Thesis Type: | PhD | ||||
Publication Status: | Unpublished | ||||
Supervisor(s)/Advisor: | Stewart, Ann ; Chamberlen, Anastasia | ||||
Sponsors: | University of Warwick. Chancellor's International Scholarship | ||||
Format of File: | |||||
Extent: | 228 leaves : illustrations (chiefly colour) | ||||
Language: | eng |
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