Conversation about the prison status in the country

On October 28, the Permanent Chair of Anthropology at the University of Azuay organized the talk called “Prison State and expansion of the penitentiary border in Ecuador”, dictated by Jorge Núñez, doctor in Anthropology from the University of California, who since the year 2003 has ethnographically studied Ecuadorian prisons.

The talk was held with the aim of generating an open and free space for discussion and dissemination on issues that concern Anthropology today.

"We believe that the academy cannot turn its back on the times we live in, on the problems of society," said Gabriela Eljuri, a professor at the University.

The main theme of the presentation was the visibility of extreme violence and the expansion of the prison border.

Núñez presented a work on visual anthropology and an anthropological argument regarding the prison videos of extreme violence that the prisoners filmed and then uploaded to social networks and other media.

“The diagnosis we made shows that the penitentiary reform builds regional mega-prisons that go out of the cities, then break and make life in jail more expensive. The greatest cost of incarceration of an inmate is covered by the families, ”Núñez mentioned.

Life in prison can be interpreted from the eyes of the State, from the media, and from the cell phones of inmates. In these ways it is possible to witness and experience the extreme violence present in the country's prisons.

Núñez stated that “the visuality that was created in the jail is expanding to the city, and this is the third space of visibility that begins to be confused with that of the jail, with who manages the cameras, with that interest that is of control , but it is also about sending messages ”.

At the end of the presentation, a discussion was held with the participants to answer some questions that arose during the presentation.

UDA Correspondent