Reclaiming care in toxic terrains

Abstract

Through the ethnographic study in Southern Brazil of prisoners in semi-liberty subjected to electronic monitoring, we explore the notion of “infrastructures of care” to understand why, in certain cases, the device does not seem to achieve hoped-for objectives -- neither those of the judicial system nor those of the prisoners themselves. Our analysis is inspired by the work of Maria Puig de la Bellacasa, who exhorts researchers to rescue the notion of care from the clutches of idealized perspectives – that is, from normative perspectives describing selfless work by perfect caregivers. In order to restore the notion of care to its full political potential, we embrace a “non-innocent” approach that penetrates into the toxic terrains involved in the dynamics of power and exclusion. Focusing mainly on the organization of the anklet-wearers’ domestic activities, we highlight the often “invisible” acts and actors that facilitate or, on the contrary, gum up the gears of the system that governs their lives. Altogether, ours is a three-fold objective, aiming to underline the collective nature of the structures of care, to enhance the visibility of previously neglected people and things, and finally to add new layers to our understanding of the real-life consequences of a certain technological artifact for the heterogeneous universe of inmates.