This thesis is a microhistorical investigation of the dynamics of control and resistance in Pollsmoor Prison and Valkenberg Psychiatric Hospital’s Maximum Security section from 1964 to 1994 in South Africa. It examines the evolution of daily life inside these institutions, both situated in the Western Cape, and the extent to which these institutions were part of the security apparatus developed by the apartheid state. The permeability of Pollsmoor and Valkenberg shed light on the connections between repression, resistance, collaboration and survival inside and outside closed institutions. The division of incarcerated populations according to race, gender, age and behaviour reflected wider logics of governance of the South African society. Similarly, the modalities of resistance and collaboration adopted by ‘political’, ‘common law’ and ‘insane’ prisoners on the inside echoed the processes of popular mobilisation on the outside. The construction of a ‘healthy nation’ through the production and control of deviances was hence far from being a smooth process. The thesis is divided into three parts, each composed of three chapters. The first part analyses the way a system of law and order, based on delineation, the bestowal of privileges and violent repression, was imposed in prisons and psychiatric hospitals’ Maximum Security sections and how this evolved according to the changing social and political imperatives of the apartheid state. The second part shifts the gaze to the level of the courts, where psychiatric and criminological discourses became increasingly entangled throughout the period. The operating modalities of the judicial system reflected the fears and expectatives of the white minority, while providing a racialised image of black populations as both dangerous and childlike. Finally, the third part analyses the links between outside and inside resistances and adaptations to the regime of apartheid. It focuses on the 1994 prison revolts as prisms to understand the processes of subjectivation and politicisation which had emerged in closed institutions during apartheid.

Over the last three decades, many women and men who were political prisoners in the Middle East have come to Canada as immigrants and refugees. In their countries of origin, they resisted oppressive social policies, ideologies, and various forms of state violence. Their journeys of forced migration/exile took them away from their country, families, and friends, but they arrived in Canada with memories of violence, resistance and survival. These former political prisoners did not want the sacrifices that they and their colleagues had made to be forgotten. They needed to find effective ways to communicate these stories. This research was conducted from a critical feminist‒anti-racist perspective, and used life history research to trace the journey of one such group of women and men. This group of former political prisoners has been meeting together, using art as a mode of expression to share their experiences, inviting others to join their resistance against state violence. Interviews were conducted with former political prisoners and their supporters and artist facilitators who were part of the art workshops, performances, and exhibits held in Toronto, Canada from January 2010 through December 2011. This dissertation examines the importance of memory projects and of remembering in acts of public testimony and the significance of providing spaces for others to bear witness to those stories. This research also contributes to the body of knowledge about the role that remembering, consciousness, and praxis play in individual and community recovery, rebuilding community, and continued resistance.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--State University of New York at Binghamton, Department of Sociology, 2005. / Includes bibliographical references.

The diploma thesis The Prison Experience (1914-1918). Cyril Dušek's correspondence from prison deals with the correspondence which theoretically and metodically considers to be a historical source and a mean of communication between prisoners and their families. It focuses on the political prisoner's correspondence during the World War I. Correspondence from prison was the only way to connect prisoners with their friends and families, thus it is very significant in research. It provides an interesting insight into the everyday life in prison, further it reveals the various individual perception manners and development of human thinking in the tense situations. The main aim of the thesis is to analyze a prison correspondence of Cyril Dušek (1881-1924) who was a responsible redactor of the magazine Čas and a member of the resistance movement, further to present its importance in the context of the other preserved correspondence, the censorship aspects of correspondence from prison and also to desribe the everyday life of the political prisoners.

1z1 Abstract: In this thesis, on selected examples of everyday life, I deal with the issue of reso- cialization of former political prisoners from the 1950s after their return from prison. On selected biographical narratives, I point to personal ways of reintegra- tion into society, whose main ideology was the cause of their persecution. From their memories I choose the basic sphereas of life such as family, personal and social life, employment and the issue of rehabilitation not only at the personal but also at the social level. A special chapter is also devoted to the descendants of former political prisoners, whose memories illustrate the view of everyday life after their imprisonment and the subsequent return of their parents and thus re- veal the real impact of persecution activities of the communist regime in Czecho- slovakia.

This diploma thesis deals with family memory of 1950s Czechoslovak political prisoners. Its two major questions are: Is there a well preserved story in an actual family memory of a family ancestor who was politically persecuted and imprisoned in the period after 1948 and is his story preserved without significant shifts from reality? Given topic is being analyzed throughout a story of three particular families - those of Bedřich Fučík, Ladislav Jehlička and Karel Procházka. These three political prisoners died already, therefore were the subject of examination records of three generations of their descendents. Primary sources for this thesis are thus personal interviews with these family members. Both archive sources and original texts written byl Bedřich Fučík and Ladislav Jehlička were also used. Individual interviews have shown that a story of their ancestor is well perserved in family memory, but every particular family or narrator have their own specificities. Some narrators have shown major shifts from reality, whereas others have not. Key words political prisoners, 1950s, family memory, communist regime, oral history

The autobiographical prison writings of four South African women - Ruth First, Caesarina Kana Makhoere, Emma Mashinini and Maggie Resha - form the focus of this study. South African autobiography is burdened with the task of producing history in the light of the silences enforced by apartheid security legislation and the dominance of representations of white histories. Autobiography with its promise of 'truth' provides the structure within which to establish a credible subject position. In chapter one I discuss the use of authenticating devices, such as documentary-like prose, and the inclusion in numerous texts of the stories of others. Asserting oneself as a (publicly acknowledged) subject in writing is particularly difficult for women who historically have been denied access to authority: while Maggie Resha's explicit task is to highlight the role women have played in the struggle, her narrative must also be broadly representative, her authority communal. As I discuss in chapter two, prison writing breaks the legal and psychological silences imposed by a hostile penal system. In a context of political repression the notion of the truth becomes complicated, because while it is important to be believed, it is also important, as with Ruth First, not to betray her comrades and values. The writer must therefore negotiate with the (imagined) audience if her signature is to be accepted and her subjectivity affirmed. The struggle to represent oneself in the inimical environment of prison and the redemptive value in doing so are considered in chapter three. The institution of imprisonment as a means of silencing political dissidence targets the body, according to Michel Foucault's theories of discipline and control explored in chapter four. Using the work of Lois McNay and Elizabeth Grosz I argue in chapter five that it is necessary also to pay attention to the specificities of female bodies which are positioned and controlled in particular ways. I argue, too, using N. Chabani Manganyi, that while anatomical differences provide the rationale for racism and sexism, the body is also an instrument for resisting negative cultural significations. For instance, Caesarina Kana Makhoere represents her body as a weapon in her political battle, inside and outside prison. The prison cell itself is formative of subjectivity as it returns an image of criminality and powerlessness to the prisoner. Following the work of human geographers in chapter six I argue that space and subjectivity are mutually constitutive, as shown by the way spatial metaphors operate in prison texts. The subject can redesign hostile space in order to represent herself. As these texts show, relations of viewing are crucial to self-identification: surveillance disempowers the prisoner and produces her as a victim, but prisoners have recourse to alternative ways of (visually) interacting in order to position the dominators as objects of their gaze, through speaking and then also through writing. Elaine Scarry's insights into torture are extended in chapter seven to encompass psychological torture and sexual harassment: inflicting bodily humiliation, as well as pain, on the body, brings it sharply into focus, making speech impossible. By writing testimony and by generating other scenes of dialogue through which subjectivity can be constructed (through being looked at and looking, through having the message of self affirmed in the other's hearing) it is possible to contain, in some way, the horror of detention and to assert a measure of control in authoring oneself. For Mashinini this healing dialogue must take place within an emotionally and ideologically sympathetic context. v For those historical subjects who have found themselves without a legally valued identity and a platform from which to articulate the challenge of their experience, writing a personal narrative may offer an invaluable chance to assert a truth, to reclaim a self and a credibility and in that way to create a kind of freedom. Bibliography: pages 173-182.

No description available.

O processo de reconstituição factual e de reflexão crítica acerca da ditadura civilmilitar de 1964 e de seu legado permanece incompleto e permeado por zonas de silêncio e interdições. Decorridos pouco mais de trinta anos da Lei de Anistia, muitos acontecimentos permanecem desconhecidos ao tempo em que se observa a existência de importantes lacunas nas articulações entre o passado e o presente e, mais especificamente, entre o legado da ditadura e a memória daqueles que a ela se opuseram ativamente. Visando contribuir para o entendimento desse passado, e de seu legado, esta pesquisa procurou caracterizar o protagonismo dos presos políticos na defesa de transformações sociais e na luta contra a ditadura e, ao mesmo tempo, oferecer um panorama reflexivo sobre a construção de suas memórias a respeito dessas lutas e da experiência-limite da tortura e da prisão. Para alcançar esses objetivos, a pesquisa pautou-se por um amplo registro das memórias desses protagonistas por meio da metodologia da História Oral de Vida um conjunto de 90 entrevistas com ex-presos políticos. O que permitiu a coleta de informações até aqui inéditas no que diz respeito à organização dos presos e à atuação dos órgãos repressivos. A execução e desenvolvimento dessa metodologia deram origem a reflexões teóricas que visaram interpretar o material coletado, contextualizando-o crítica e historicamente. Partiu-se, ainda, da premissa de que tais testemunhos, juntamente com os de advogados, familiares e militantes permitiriam aprofundar as pesquisas desenvolvidas sobre as lutas revolucionárias e de resistência; a clandestinidade; as formas institucionais da repressão política e as disputas políticas estabelecidas dentro e fora dos cárceres. Os depoimentos dos ex-presos permitiram, ainda, a análise de suas estratégias de sobrevivência e memória. Tais estratégias foram aqui discutidas à luz dos esforços empreendidos para a compreensão da maneira como eles próprios reorganizaram identidades, constituíram grupos de ação política e definiram maneiras de se relacionar com o legado das experiências-limite. Reconstruir as tramas dessa história, com o suporte do material coletado, apresenta novas possibilidades de interpretação desse período recente da história brasileira cuja atualidade permanece. / The process of reconstituting the facts and of producing a critical analysis of the civilian-military dictatorship of 1964 and its legacy is incomplete and permeated by interdits and silence. After a little more than thirty years of the Amnesty Law, many events remain unknown, while important lacunae abide between the past and the present and, more specifically, between the legacy of the dictatorship and the memory of those who actively opposed it. Aiming to contribute to the understanding of this past and of its legacy, this study sought to describe the protagonism of political prisoners in the defense of social transformation and in the struggle against the dictatorship. At the same time, it aimed to offer a reflective view on the ways former prisoners have constructed their memories of these struggles and of the limit-experience of torture and prison. To achieve these objectives, the study made use of an extensive record of the memories of these protagonists. Using the methodology of Oral Life History, a set of 90 interviews with ex-political prisoners was conducted, allowing the collection of as yet unpublished information relating to the prisoners organization and the actions of the repressive agencies. The execution and development of this methodology gave rise to theoretical reflections which sought to interpret the material collected by contextualizing it critically and historically. The underlying premise was that these testimonies, together with those of lawyers, family members, and militants of the opposition, would allow us to deepen research on revolutionary struggles and resistance, on life in clandestinity, on the institutional forms of political repression, and on the political debates carried on inside and outside the prisons. The testimonies of the former prisoners also made possible an analysis of their strategies for survival and memory. These strategies were discussed here in an effort to understand the way that the ex-prisoners themselves reorganized identities, constructed political action groups, and defined ways of relating to the legacy of limit-experiences. The reconstruction of the frames of this history, based upon the material collected introduces new oportunities for interpretation of this recent period in Brazilian history, which has echoes in the present day.

Made available in DSpace on 2016-04-27T19:30:41Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Joana Santos Rolemberg Cortes.pdf: 3259522 bytes, checksum: a8602d6e83b88fedc298c6e6bb31d195 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2012-10-15 / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior / The core issue of this Master s dissertation is the resistance experience socialized in the daily life of the political prisoners at the Barreto Campelo prison on Itamaracá Island, in the state of Pernambuco, from 1973 to 1979, during the civil-military dictatorship in Brazil. By means of Oral History, the analysis of a rich document and photo archive belonging to the six former political prisoners interviewed for this research, as well as reports produced by DOPS (Political and Social Order Department Intelligence Department during Dictatorship) of the State of Pernambuco, the study analyses two key dimensions of this resistance movement born and developed in the Brazilian jail. The first of them concerns to the resistance struggle against various rights violations, to mechanisms imposed by the repressive apparatus of the State in prisons, and the creation of survival strategies, identity reorganization and rearticulation of collective political power of these individuals. The second dimension focuses on the articulation of these struggles with external social movements. It examines how, in defending without hesitation the recognition of the political prisoners conditions and denouncing the arbitrariness of the regime then in power, the mobilisation of the collective of Itamaracá goes well beyond the prison walls and establishes links with many political prisons of the country, strengthens the link with human rights groups and constitutes - along with Women's Movement and the Brazilian Amnesty Committees, MDB (Brazilian Democratic Movement party), OABs (Brazilian Bar Associations), exiled Brazilians, families of the dead and missing, students and workers organisations, as well as the Commission of Justice and Peace of Archdioceses in some states one of the main actors of the opposition forces against the Brazilian dictatorship for the democratisation of the country in the late 1970s. In a year that the Truth Commissions start to operate in the country, focusing on the experiences of the former political prisoners of Itamaracá, the research seeks to contribute in the extension of social memory on current issues of this historical process over the recent past but also PRESENT - of - political authoritarianism and human rights violations in the country / Esta dissertação tem como tema central as experiências de resistência socializadas no cotidiano dos presos políticos na Penitenciária Barreto Campelo, na ilha de Itamaracá, no estado de Pernambuco, entre 1973 a 1979, durante a ditadura civilmilitar no país. Através da História Oral, da análise de vasto acervo documental/fotográfico pertencente aos seis ex-presos políticos entrevistados para esta pesquisa, e de relatórios produzidos pelo DOPS de Pernambuco, analisa duas dimensões essenciais desse movimento de resistência gestado no cárcere brasileiro. A primeira diz respeito à luta de resistência aos diferentes mecanismos de violações de direitos, impostos pelo aparelho repressivo do Estado na prisão, e a invenção de estratégias de sobrevivência, de reorganização de identidades e de rearticulação da força política coletiva desses sujeitos. A segunda dimensão centra-se nas articulações dessas lutas aos movimentos sociais externos. Analisa como, ao defender incontestavelmente o reconhecimento da condição de presos políticos e denunciar as arbitrariedades do regime então vigente, as mobilizações do coletivo de Itamaracá extrapolam os muros da prisão e estabelecem vínculos com diversos presídios políticos do país, consolidam a ligação com as entidades de direitos humanos e se constituem ao lado dos Movimentos Femininos e Comitês Brasileiros de Anistia, do MDB, das OABs, dos exilados, dos familiares de mortos e desaparecidos, das organizações estudantis e operárias e das Comissões de Justiça e Paz das Arquidioceses em um dos principais protagonistas das forças de oposição contra a ditadura brasileira e pela redemocratização do país no final da década de 1970. No ano em que as Comissões da Verdade começam a ser instaladas no país, colocando em foco as experiências de ex-presos políticos de Itamaracá, a pesquisa busca contribuir para o alargamento da memória social sobre questões atuais desse processo histórico sobre o passado recente e PRESENTE - de autoritarismo político e violação dos direitos humanos no país