Reading as an emancipatory practice in a penitentiary context: a study in the light of applied linguistics

Abstract

As part of a larger project, called Dialogic reading in a prison context: female voices that echo responsively in the construction of meanings, this article seeks to investigate the social practice of reading from a dialogical perspective in a female penitentiary in Palmas-Tocantins. Inserted in the area of ​​Applied Linguistics, in a Transgressive conception, we seek to understand how inmates build meanings as a form of awareness. This investigation has an interpretive orientation and was inspired by the methodology of Pensar Alto em Grupo-PAG. We analyze, from the experience of reading the short story A moça tecelã, how the constitution of the incarcerated women’s reading identity took place. The theoretical foundation is related to the dialogical assumptions of the Bakhtin Circle, on literacy studies and the epistemology of emancipatory education. The data revealed that: i) the participants discovered their subjective and dialogic voices (refuting, agreeing, giving new meaning) through reading, confirming that the act of reading in prison is a form of emancipation; ii) the inmates emancipate themselves when they become aware of their state and from there they seek to transform it in a critical and reflexive way.