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Redeeming Bodies and Souls

其他書名	Penitentiary Science and Spirituality in Twentieth-century Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic
出版	University of Wisconsin--Madison, 2017
URL	http://books.google.com.hk/books?id=P1IPzgEACAAJ&hl=&source=gbs_api

註釋This dissertation examines intersections of medicine and belief, and the politics of incarceration in Caribbean societies under U.S. influence. It is a comparative social, cultural, and political history of convicts and the different communities with which they interacted. I use penitentiaries to understand the intricate knowledge and experiences shaping the consolidation of two polities and societies in the twentieth century: the Insular Penitentiary (Oso Blanco) and colonial democracy in Puerto Rico, and the Nigua penitentiary and dictatorship in the Dominican Republic. Rather than focus exclusively on modernization, criminology, and the customary orders of penitentiaries, however, I emphasize convict intellects, how the prison afforded them opportunities to refine their political voice, and how their volition positioned them to negotiate state conditioning. My findings challenge scholars to transcend the biopolitics of prisons by bringing to light the common aspects of "irreconcilable" forms of knowledge and experience. This signals a shift away from narratives that underscore the raw hegemony of incarceration, the magnification of difference, and the failures of rehabilitation. Instead, I trace the medico-religious and humanistic routines of prison life, and the uneven yet profound links between convicts, communities, and political systems. Using a range of archival, library, and other (un)published materials, I argue that despite historical and political differences in Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic, science and spirituality were powerful tools of redemptive practice. By redemptive practice I mean (im)material approaches to (un)freedom, citizen-making, and community formation. In both societies, science and spirituality helped produce "awakened" citizens on the one hand and perpetual citizenship deficits on the other. These "ways of knowing" diverged in terms of content, but shared the scaffolding of performance. As experiential reformatory enterprises, Caribbean penitentiaries and their cultures of care inspired the correctional imagination behind and beyond bars. They formed part of a constellation of redemptive practices that spanned medical and social science, orthodox and heterodox religiosities, the broader humanities, and executive clemency. Convicts, their extended communities, and state professionals engaged these practices, but within limits specific to each society. Redemptive practices showcase national difference within the Caribbean, but also what integrated and subregionalized the region.