PRISON AS A RACIALIZED SPACE: A BLACK WOMAN'S EXPERIENCES OF CONFINEMENT

Abstract

The mass incarceration of women in Brazil as a criminal public security policy - the phenomenon of the feminization of punishment - has been the subject of sociological approaches that point to the marginalization of the underprivileged, in a scenario marked by overlapping vulnerabilities. This paper presents a gender perspective, with a focus on race, considering the need to understand the constitution of black women in spaces of deprivation of liberty. From the perspective of intersectionality, we want to understand how practices of racism are configured and perpetuated in the criminal justice system.  This paper is a fragment of empirical social research carried out in a male-mixed prison in the interior of the state of Rio Grande do Sul, with women deprived of their liberty for involvement in drug trafficking. Based on an analysis of the relationships built/constituted in the daily life of the prison, in the prison dynamics, the aim is to approach the experiences of a black woman and the different forms of racism she faces and denounces. This is a qualitative approach, using the biographical method of life history to give voice to Quitéria, a black woman in prison who tells, signifies and gives new meaning to her experiences, revealing different forms of oppression that are distinct and concomitant. In the protagonist's narrative, in the plots of affection and interpersonal relationships, race and gender are markers articulated in her practices, which shape her experiences.  Prison reveals itself to Quitéria as a racialized space, where the inequalities she faced outside the prison walls are reinforced and reproduced there, consolidating the precarious existence of those who are in this non-place.