Narratives on mothering practices in prison: The crossroads between the prison system's discursive order and the discursive order of care

Abstract

When women inmates in Brazil give birth during their incarceration, they have the right to stay with their children in specific units for mothers and infants for at least six months. The focus of this living experience is care and protection of the child, but it takes places in a setting determined by the prison order. This study aims to analyze the exercise of motherhood in prison. Six narrative interviews were performed in Rio de Janeiro: two with women who experienced motherhood while in prison in the Maternal and Child Unit at the Gericinó Prison Complex, and four with staff members of nongovernmental organizations working with women who had given birth during incarceration. The narratives were analyzed via interpretation of the roles and relations between the narrated characters and the way their interactions shape the stories. Finally, an interpretative linkage was established between the narratives and the theoretical frame of reference on gender and prisons. The study concludes that the prison rules and standards of care produce tensions and convergences in a dynamic that seeks to benefit the infant without failing to punish the woman. Motherhood in prison thus acts as a way of reaffirming a gender morality, defined as the role of good mother.