EVASION: Prison Escapes and the Predicament of Incarceration in Rio de Janeiro

This article examines Brazil's project of incarceration through the figure of evasion (evas & atilde;o)& mdash;the act of escaping prison custody, often temporarily. Evasion traces a path across the borders of captivity and freedom, as people routinely flee confine-ment, only to return of their own accord. I position both prisons and evasion as part of an ongoing history of, and tension between, Black fugitive life and emancipation in Brazil and the Americas. I argue that while evasion offers no clear exit from the punitive edge of the law, it produces another mode of inhabiting the time and ter-ritory of incarceration. With a focus on two incarcerated Black travestis, I outline some of these evasive movements and demonstrate the fault lines that they reveal & mdash; both within the prison system's own claims to legitimacy and in the concepts that we bring to bear on incarceration. [prisons; fugitivity; emancipation; gender; race; travestis; Brazil]