Leituras e leitores no contexto prisional: o projeto Carrinho da Leitura como forma de remição penal (Presídio Estadual de Camaquã/RS, 2017-2023)

Abstract

This work, developed in the postgraduate course in History at the Federal University of Pelotas, aims, based on the theoretical and methodological principles of Cultural History, to give visibility to the existence of written culture in the prison environment. From this perspective, we seek to analyze the development of the sentence remission project through reading, implemented at the Camaquã State Prison, called “Reading Cart: encouraging reading as a form of liberation,” as well as the reading practices and appropriation of reading carried out by individuals deprived of liberty. The “Reading Cart” project was created in 2017 with the purpose of promoting and making reading practices accessible to all incarcerated individuals in that facility. Thus, it preceded the formal regulation of sentence remission through reading, which took place in 2021. The time frame selected for this research is the period between 2017 and 2023, as this span encompasses the creation and implementation of the project. The year 2023 was chosen as the endpoint because it marks the moment when field research and data collection were conducted. Based on a qualitative ethnographic methodology combined with documentary research, this study aims to understand the various aspects of the analyzed phenomenon and its particularities. In addition to institutional documents, the reading reports composed by written reflections form a diverse documentary corpus that allows for multiple approaches to analyzing the topic under investigation. Understanding the relationship different groups specifically incarcerated individuals establish with reading and writing is fundamental to the history of reading, and more specifically, to the success of sentence remission projects based on reading.That said, we seek to collaborate in studies on reading and writing practices inserted in a unique context, which is the prison context, unknown to a large part of society.