Rethinking Women’s Prison Treatment from a Contested Life-Course Lens

This chapter will address the experiences of women’s imprisonment in Lima-Peru, focusing on the notions of self and the social roles assumed, when socialising with people on the other side of the prison walls.

In Latin America, linear life course logics are contested by life stories that include childhoods taking on adult responsibilities and elders grieving for the wounds of their youth. Precarious and precarising contexts of patriarchal control and violence represent an additional challenge to the trajectories of women, who often outline strategies to both pursue their own growth while assuming caregiving roles in non-traditional familiar organisations. Despite these complex configurations, alternative human development logics and its implications in women’s agency, decision-making processes, and bonding styles during imprisonment are often overlooked in prison studies.

Thus, by analysing motherhood trajectories of ten incarcerated women participating in a group workshop, this chapter will deepen the narratives of women to elucidate the ways in which gender and life course trajectories intertwine and frame the subjective experience of imprisonment.