AS INTERPRETAÇÕES DO TEMPO EM UMA PRISÃO DE MULHERES

Abstract

This article analyzes the perception of time among women serving a prison sentence in two women's prisons in Brazil. The research was carried out in a state penitentiary in Rio Grande do Norte and in a Social Reintegration Center in Minas Gerais. The main problem with this work was how these women understand their time in prison and how significant it is for their lives after they leave. The methods used to answer this question were direct observation, participant observation, life story interviews and what I called “guided conversations”. By crossing perspectives of different women living different moments of their lives in prison, it was revealed that there are two major perspectives on time shared by these incarcerated women, “suspended time” and “constructive time”, which are strictly linked to the notions of self, memory and emotion. From the idea of ​​“suspended time”, time can be interpreted as “mourning”, “nightmare”, or even being selectively denied or contracted. From the view of the sentence as a “constructive time”, the inmates can interpret their time in prison as a way to gain status in the criminal world, guiding their life projects towards a progression in the criminal moral career. On the other hand, the sentence can be seen as a metamorphosis point in the life of the subject, who decides to restart his moral career away from the world of crime or prison.