An ethnography among the archives of deportation and imprisonments in Brazil

• Grant number: 23/09785-2
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Doctorate (Direct)
• Start date: August 01, 2023
• Status: Discontinued
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - Anthropology - Urban Anthropology
• Principal Investigator: Natália Corazza Padovani
• Grantee: Pietro Ferretti Rocco
• Host Institution: Instituto de Filosofia e Ciências Humanas (IFCH). Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP). Campinas , SP, Brazil
• Associated research grant: 22/03156-0 - Expulsions: compulsory measures and foreigners incarceration in an intersectional and comparative perspective, AP.PNGP.PI
• Associated scholarship(s): 24/23390-3 - An ethnography among the archives of deportation and imprisonments in Brazil, BE.EP.DD

Abstract

This research takes as reference the files from Museu Penitenciário Paulista, the Public Archive of the State of São Paulo, and the Central Police Department, in order to analyze imprisonments and orders of compulsory removal of foreigners who were accused of committing crimes in the State of São Paulo between the years 1940 and 1988. The year 1940 dates the institution of Museu Penitenciário Paulista, in which medical records and follow-up processes of people who have passed through prison institutes of the state of São Paulo are archived. On the other hand, 1988 is the year when the national constitution has been proclaimed, after the Military Dictatorship in Brazil. This project aims to scrutinize links between expulsion and imprisonment processes from a broad temporal perspective, through which it is aimed to scrutinize sustained, dissolved, or even resignified practices over time. The selected collections are provided with records of foreign prisoners who were extradited or expelled from Brazil, largely as a result of their participation in political activities that were criminalized, but not only that. The acceptation of crime and political activity is often mixed, and its meaning can be significantly different throughout the time. Analyzing these files allows us to apprehend some perceptions, from documentary records produced by the operators of prison institutions from the national borders in the state of São Paulo, about which foreigners were categorized as undesirable. Through an analysis that puts into interlocution archives of expulsions and imprisonments, it is aimed to understand how categories of gender, race and class are showed in documents, examinations and reports produced in different sociohistorical contexts. (AU)