Prison in Peru: Ethnographic, Feminist and Decolonial Perspectives (Palgrave Studies in Prisons and Penology)

This book expands the field of prison research by drawing on six months of unique, ethnographic research in Santa Monica prison, the largest women's prison in Lima, Peru. Using feminist and decolonial perspectives, it explores power and the governance system and its implications on how the prison operates and the lived experiences of women prisoners and their interpersonal relationships. It reflects on the intersection of prison, imprisonment and gender from a Global South perspective and includes methodological reflections on how to research prisons in the Global South holistically. It fills a gap and engages with debates on governmentality and women's agency within the penal context. Lucia Bracco Bruce completed her PhD in 2020 on Women and Gender studies from the Department of Sociology of the University of Warwick, United Kingdom. She has a degree in Clinical Psychology and a master's degree in Gender Studies from the Pontificia Universidad Catolica del Peru (PUCP) Acknowledgements 7 Contents 10 List of Figures 14 List of Tables 15 1 Introduction 16 About Prison Governance and Agency 17 A Brief Introduction to Santa Monica’s Population 22 Who Are the Women of Santa Monica? 24 Research as a Technology of Care: Taking Care of (Their and My) Emotions 26 Santa Monica’s Macro, Meso and Micro Dynamics: The Book’ Main Arguments 33 Some Final Introductory Remarks 36 References 38 2 Coloniality of Power and Coloniality of Knowledge: Prisons in Peru as Post-colonial and Patriarchal Institutions 48 A Socio-Historical Review of Peruvian Prisons 49 Punishment in the Pre-colonial Period 50 The Colonial Empire: Colonialism and Patriarchy 50 The Peruvian Republic and the Consolidation of “modern” Prisons 55 A Contemporary Approach to Peruvian women’s Prisons 62 Coloniality of Knowledge and the Hegemonic Analysis of Prisons at the Global South 72 Conclusions 75 References 76 3 Decolonising and De-patriarchalising Analyses of the Prison in the Global South 87 Decolonising and De-patriarchalising Prison Studies 88 An Alternative Thematic Guideline to Approaching Imprisonment in the Global South 90 Authority 91 Formal Control and Surveillance in Prisons in the Global South 91 The Role and Participation of Prisoners in the Prison’s Functioning and Conviviality 95 The Presence of Multiple Legal Orders 103 Mobility/Control 107 Prison’s Permeability and Fluidity 108 Agency 111 Personal and Collective Embodied Processes of Agency 111 Conclusions 117 References 119 4 The Macro-Political Dimension of Santa Monica: Intertwined Co-governance, Interlegality and Prisoner-Delegates 129 Santa Monica’s Formal and Informal Orders 130 Santa Monica’s Formal Order 131 Santa Monica’s Informal-Legitimised Order 138 Electing and Profiling the Delegates of Santa Monica 144 Subtle Negotiations to Elect Santa Monica’s Delegates 145 “Profiling” Santa Monica’s Delegates 146 The Intertwining of Orders and Legal Systems 147 Co-financing and Co-producing the Prison’s Daily Life 148 Interlegality in Santa Monica: “God May Forgive Sin, but He Does not Forgive a Scandal” 152 The Hybrid Legal System as a Strategy to Maintain Adequate Conviviality 156 Ambivalence in the Recognition of Delegates’ Roles 160 Delegates as Interface Brokers of prison’s Social Reproduction 161 Depletion: The Consequence of Unpaid, Unrecognised Social Reproduction 164 Conclusions 167 References 170 5 Santa Monica’s Meso-Social Dimension: Religious Performances, and Formal and Informal-Legitimised Labour 175 Religion: The Moral Narrative that Connects Santa Monica’s Orders and Legal Systems? 176 The Political and Normative Presence of Catholicism in the Formal Order 177 Religion in the Informal-Legitimised Order 181 Formal and Informal-Legitimised Labour Activities in Santa Monica 186 Formal Labour: Feminised Activities, Productive Work 187 Labour in the Informal-Legitimised Order: Formally Unrecognised But Economically Paid “Prison Housework” 198 Conclusion 203 References 205 6 Santa Monica’s Micro-Intersubjective Dimension: Interpersonal Relationships and Gendered Subjectivities 212 Prison’s Ambivalent Social Interactions and Interpersonal Relationships 213 Defensive Distrust and Violence in Santa Monica 214 Intimate Trust Relationships 218 Interpersonal Relationships as Collective Spaces to Discipline and Subvert Gender Subjectivities 238 Disciplining Women Prisoners’ Gendered Subjectivities 238 Subverting Prisoners’ Gendered Subjectivities 251 Conclusions 261 References 263 7 Conclusions 272 A Final Contribution: Constructing Knowledge from an Epistemology of the South 278 References 282 Appendix 284 Research Design 284 Formal Access to Santa Monica Prison 285 Method and Methodological Tools 285 Data Analysis and Interpretation 289 Ethics in Prison: Working with a Vulnerable Population 292 My Positionality as Researcher: Justification of Methods 294 Index 302