Confounding borders and walls: documents, letters and the governance of relationships in São Paulo and Barcelona prisons

Spanish women arrested in São Paulo, and Brazilian women arrested in Barcelona, often carry letters and documents in folders, plastic bags and envelopes, well protected in pockets, purses or knapsacks. The papers tell of events in the lives of these women, and provide clues and legibility to relationships maintained with people and places outside prison. In this paper, I analyze how letters and documents are products of family and transnational relationships that they can also produce. The paper looks at how they are used as evidence of families and loving relationships that each day are evaluated, and recognized or rejected, by public safety authorities, prison wardens, prosecutors, public defenders, consulates and immigration police. The letters and documents tell stories that are used to substantiate the deportation or immigration of Spanish women imprisoned in São Paulo and Brazilian women imprisoned in Barcelona. (AU)