THE MANAGEMENT OF MATERNITY THROUGH "ESCAPE CONTROL": the crossings of criminal justice in the trajectory of homeless women-mothers

• Grant number: 24/03787-6
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Master
• Start date: August 01, 2025
• End date: March 31, 2026
• Field of knowledge: Applied Social Sciences - Law - Public Law
• Principal Investigator: Ana Gabriela Mendes Braga
• Grantee: Vitória Garbelline Teloli
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Ciências Humanas e Sociais (FCHS). Universidade Estadual Paulista (UNESP). Campus de Franca. Franca , SP, Brazil

Abstract

The aim of this Master's Project is to investigate the ways in which Brazilian criminal justice affects the trajectory of homeless mothers, problematizing the dimensions of home, homelessness and motherhood in the plots between the city and prison, based on micro-narratives of life. The dynamics that mark this study will be read from a feminist literature in terms of gender as a category of analysis, whose theoretical contribution will be reflective at the interface with the ambiguities surrounding the contemporary state, especially in terms of the devices of control and surveillance against women-mothers who face other social increments of marginalization (race; extreme poverty; homelessness; criminalization). To this end, in order to map out the prison entanglements involving the chosen interlocutors from their own perspectives, we propose using an empirical methodology, marked by qualitative tools and a combination of techniques. Initially, potential interviewees will be called for conversation groups, to be held at the Temporary Shelter and the Specialized Reference Centre for the Homeless (CentroPop), both in the city of Franca/SP. The conversation groups will be linked to discussions on access to justice, gender and motherhood, mobilized from life experiences. Once the thread of connection between researcher-interlocutor-field has been built up, individual in-depth interviews will be suggested with women intertwined by the dimensions of the street and motherhood who are willing and able to share interventions by the penal system on their biographies. Part of this empirical-qualitative study will also be the analysis of socio-assistance, institutional (such as court cases) and unofficial documents that are first accessible to this researcher, and then tell us about the presence of criminal justice in the lives of the women interviewed. The aim of this research is to contribute to the debates that revolve around punitive government management of the bodies of women-mothers, with a focus on those who are cut off by the social marginalization of homelessness, understanding the institutional devices in their legal-normative ambiguities.