Resumo

COMFORT, Megan. «We share everything we can»: the dualization of the confined body in romances through prison bars. Anál. Social [online]. 2007, n.185, pp.1055-1079. ISSN 0003-2573.

Keeping up a relationship with a prisoner is a challenge to modern western conventions on what constitutes romantic involvement. The punitive supervision, prohibition and surveillance characteristic of prison life render such liaisons extreme examples of control over personal life. This study uses data from ethnographic work carried out in the visitors' waiting room of San Quentin prison and from interviews of women whose partners are in jail to identify four specific types of interaction between couples during the time the man is incarcerated. Through their efforts to «be together» and support their loved ones, women take their domestic environment to the prison so that a series of punishments - stigma, blame, invasion of privacy, rules, spatial limitations and time restrictions - are reflected in the home. Interpreting D. Clemmer's concept of «prisonization» as the socialization of prison norms, this study argues that, even if they are not physically present in the prison, women are subject to «secondary imprisonment» by way of institutional control and regulation, given that the methods they use to keep in contact with their partner involve giving up their private sphere and turning it into an extension of penal control.

Palavras-chave : prison; gender; courtship; high security; imprisonment.

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