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Pedagogy behind and beyond Bars: Critical Perspectives on Prison Education in Contemporary Documentary Film from Argentina

Accepted version
Peer-reviewed

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Article

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Abstract

jats:titleAbstract</jats:title>jats:pSince 2008, numerous Argentine documentary films have explored the complexities of prison education. Prison education documentaries from other countries usually focus overwhelmingly on the possible success of “rehabilitation.” In contrast, this article argues that contemporary Argentine prison education documentaries encourage critical, at times quasi-abolitionist, perspectives on imprisonment by challenging both punitive attitudes and liberal beliefs in thejats:italicreinserción</jats:italic>(reintegration) of prisoners into society. Analyzing the documentariesjats:italicEl almafuerte</jats:italic>(dir. Roberto Sebastián Persano, Santiago Nacif Cabrera, and Andrés Martínez Cantó, Argentina, 2009),jats:italic13 puertas</jats:italic>(dir. David Rubio, Argentina, 2014),jats:italicLunas cautivas</jats:italic>(dir. Marcia Paradiso, Argentina, 2012), andjats:italicPabellón 4</jats:italic>(dir. Diego Gachassin, Argentina, 2017), it draws on insights from film studies and criminology to show how these films provide intersectional and structural critiques of imprisonment. “Touristic” and affective encounters between incarcerated and non-incarcerated people serve to challenge comfortable viewing positions predicated on internal-external carceral and cinematic divides. These films teach spectators that outside spaces, people, and institutions are all central to the meaning, problems, and incoherence of incarceration in Argentina.</jats:p>

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Journal Title

Latin American Research Review

Conference Name

Journal ISSN

0023-8791
1542-4278

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Publisher

Cambridge University Press (CUP)
Sponsorship
Researched while funded by a Baillie Gifford Cambridge UK Masters Studentship, finished and published while funded by a Wolfson Postgraduate Scholarship in the Humanities