Anti-carceral feminisms in Ecuador: toward a non-penal feminist justice
Lorena Burbano (Mujeres de Frente, Ecuador)
Silvana Tapia Tapia (University of Birmingham)
Abstract: This presentation brings together the perspectives of academics and grassroots organisers on how living inside or near prisons can inform feminist understandings of justice and rights. Such understandings often move away from the traditional criminal legal paradigm and legalistic notions of justice more broadly.
Speakers: Silvana will present research findings —produced in collaboration with Mujeres de Frente and other anti-carceral collectives— on how anti-carceral feminists engage with international human rights (IHRs). The latter are framed as a discourse that often promotes and even compels states to use penal and carceral mechanisms. Introducing the concept of 'penal violence against women', the findings reveal the systemic violence inflicted on women by the penal system, both directly and 'indirectly', including on women who are not incarcerated nor involved in criminal proceedings. Participants are generally sceptical of IHRs, which are regarded as an elitist framework with little transformative potential. Instead, they prefer community-building, resource and labour redistribution, and collective support as more effective strategies for preventing and overcoming violence.
Lorena, a member of Mujeres de Frente, will speak about the organisation, its history, projects, priorities, goals and challenges. She will also refer to their collective practices of justice and the reasons why they denounce punitive mechanisms as tools of social control, encouraging a critical dialogue on the existence of prisons and their consequences for women who pass through them or provide care for incarcerated people.
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This event will take place online and in-person. Please register at the link to receive the Microsoft Teams link in advance of the event.
Location: Criminology Seminar Room, Centre for Criminology (St Cross Building, OX1 3TJ)