"Miradas Otras": Promoting reading and writing practices from a Mexican prison

Abstract

An intervention is presented to promote reading and writing with people deprived of liberty from the Pacho Viejo Social Reintegration Center, Veracruz, Mexico. The reading cartography considered the issue of confinement and peace, whose published authors were and / or are still in prison. The activities carried out sought to account for the literacies –from a sociocultural approach–, the situated social and cultural practices. As a result, 122 logs were obtained from the 11 participants of the intervention. Derived from his analysis, five lines of interpretation were created to reflect the literacies and modes of reading in these situated literate practices. To illustrate the expressions, fragments of the voices of these people are interspersed, about their reading receptions and the different textual, emotional, biographical, social, and political meanings. It was shown that there are multiple scenes and dimensions of reading, which contributes to the knowledge of perceptions and reflections in prison spaces. In conclusion, the importance of offering a resignification of the condition of being imprisoned through reading and writing is emphasized, as well as bringing the narratives created in contexts of confinement to the population outside the walls to present another perspective of the reality that lives in prison.