Power, conflict and order. Villa de las Palmas (Colombia) National Penitentiary

Abstract

In this paper, readers will find a description of such a particular social institutions as prison. The aim of this paper is to demonstrate how, along social interactions during daily life of detainees, relations between power and conflict have been constructed giving the way to the order alterative to the legal one endorsed by the State. Despite of the fact that this institution is based on the convergence of diverse actors of power like the administration, the guards, and the detainees, it is the relations between the latter two which are of a special interest to the author of this paper, since these actors are transformed into the key ones in terms of power needed to construct what we have called an alternative order.