Collective Narratives of Internal Social Relationships Among Incarcerated Women in Chile

This article analyses everyday social relations in women’s prisons in Chile, focusing on how power, harm, and support are experienced by Special Protection Groups: foreign women, older women, LGBTIQ+ women, and mothers. Drawing on 31 participatory workshops with 201 incarcerated women in Santiago and Valparaíso, the study develops an abductive coding system identifying twelve forms of interaction and eleven relational qualities. Building on this, the study adopts a participatory approach based on collective narratives to analyze social relationships as a structuring dimension of incarceration, in dialogue with broader debates on prison social order, gendered power relations, and institutional legitimacy. Findings show that relations with prison staff are largely coercive, bureaucratic, and arbitrary, while relations among inmates combine conflict with networks of solidarity and care. Patterns of aggravated marginalization are especially pronounced among foreign, older, and LGBTIQ+ women, highlighting critical implications for gender- and rights-based prison reform.