This volume brings forth first-of-its-kind ethnographic research on Latin American “carceral communities,” a term coined to explore the informal dynamics of prison worlds across the region. In the last half-decade, Latin American ethnographers working in different national contexts have called attention to the vital importance of these communities: prisoners often work closely between themselves and with their family members, associates, neighbors, human rights lawyers, and prison staff in order to improve infrastructural conditions and everyday life within the penal complex. This book probes how prisoner collectives exercise extraordinary autonomy and influence within the sites of their “warehousing” and “civil abandonment".  The editors and contributors to this volume ask: how did this arrangement of prisoner co-governance of the prison come into existence in Latin America? What differences exist between carceral communities from one national context to another? It offers novel theoretical perspectives on topics such as colonial studies applied to discuss the penal state, methodological reflections on ethnographic work in prisons and the constitution of the ethnographic object, and new approaches centered on the complexities of memories of prison violence. This edited volume represents the very best academic research to date on the prison regimes of Latin America, exploring their informal dynamics and theorizing how day-to-day life for the incarcerated has been forged in tandem between prison facilities and the outside world.   weiterlesen