Neither in nor out: maternity in the experience of foreigners who are imprisoned in São Paulo

• Grant number: 11/21561-5
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships abroad - Research Internship - Doctorate (Direct)
• Start date: August 01, 2012
• End date: February 28, 2013
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - Anthropology - Urban Anthropology
• Principal Investigator: Adriana Gracia Piscitelli
• Grantee: Bruna Louzada Bumachar
• Supervisor: Rhacel Salazar Parreñas
• Host Institution: Instituto de Filosofia e Ciências Humanas (IFCH). Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP). Campinas , SP, Brazil
• Institution abroad: University of Southern California (USC), United States
• Associated to the scholarship: 10/18227-3 - Nor in or out: the prisional experience of foreigners at PFC, BP.DD

Abstract

The present project is a deepening of reflections, begun during my masters' research, regarding the experience of imprisoned foreign women (i.e estrangeiras) with maternity, both in and out of jail. The universe to be researched involves the foreign women imprisoned in the Penitenciária Feminina da Capital (PFC - Capital City Female Penitenciary) in the city of São Paulo, as well as the actors who deal with these women both in and out of prison. My main objective is to reveal the prison experience of these estrangeiras through the lens of maternity, an experience that is marked, on one hand, by the concept of "outside" (understood through two different meanings: out of jail and out of Brazil) and, on the other, by a web of connections that guarantees these women a given presence "outside". The methodology to be used includes the continuation of the fieldwork which I began for the Instituto Terra Trabalho e Cidadania (Land, Work and Citizenship Institute - ITTC) and the Pastoral Carcerária (Prison Pastoral) together with foreign women imprisoned in the PFC. I will expand this work with research at the maternity ward of the Centro Hospitalar da Santa Casa, the hospital where the women give birth while imprisoned and where they will stay with their children for the first six months of their lives. Aside from this, I will undertake in-depth interviews with a selection of these women and analyze the letters and e-mails which they send and receive. Finally, if I am able to, I intend to accompany some of their children as these are repatriated from São Paulo to their country of origin. (AU)