Performing Hope: Re-Socialization Programs in Rio de Janeiro Prisons

This research focuses on the “re-socialization” programs for those incarcerated in Rio de Janeiro’s prison system. These programs work to reform and transform the lives of the imprisoned by providing narratives of the future, narratives that build on broader notions of a “reformed” city and nation free of their perceived social ills. Yet they also place the incarcerated in a bind, legitimating only a narrow, conservative vision of work, family and social life that is often impossible for poor, black and queer inmates, even though they must perform these narratives of change to secure parole and other benefits. David works with both inmates and prison workers (public defenders, church groups, psychologists and others) who carry out this re-socialization work. He asks how prisons become sites of hope – a hope that is at once liberating and confining, and that is enmeshed in conflicts over the future of Rio de Janeiro and Brazil.