Straniere nel carcere portoghese. Differenze situate e identità mimetiche tra lontananza e sopravvivenza

Abstract

Based on recent ethnographic research within two Portuguese women's prisons, the article highlights the dynamics of resistance and material and emotional survival of Hispanic-American women incarcerated for international drug trafficking: the so-called mules. While questioning the supposed cultural affinities and differences centered on the concept of ethnicity, skin color, and nationality as determinants of harmonious or conflictual interpersonal relationships, it also highlights a certain fluidity of identities that are structured in the prison environment, emphasizing how they are mostly contextual. With these premises in mind, the article contributes to the analysis of the relationships between foreign female inmates and between foreign and domestic female inmates, particularly highlighting the difficulties experienced when the prison within which one is interned is located in an unfamiliar country and distant from the place where the family resides.