Reading Kafka in Prison: Exploring the Sustainability of Dialogic Literary Gatherings in Challenging Contexts

• In Event: Dialogic Literary Gatherings: Improving Literacy Standing on the Shoulders of Classic Readings

Abstract

1. Objectives
This study explores which principles embedded in Dialogic Literary Gatherings (DLG) have enhanced the sustainability of this reading program in prisons for more than 10 years.

2. Theoretical framework
Building upon evidence on the emancipatory results of reading practices with inmate population (Boudin, 1993; Bowe, 2011; Clemente et al., 2011; Guerra, 2012), the DLG also reached prisons successfully in the last decade. This paper reports a study on the principles of DLG which both have influenced the emotional and academic development of inmates and have supported the sustainability of DLG in prisons (Flecha, García & Gómez, 2013). Consistent with understanding dialogue as a cultural and psychological tool for human development and social transformation (Lee & Smagorinsky, 2000), the DLG have proved its transformative potential with vulnerable groups, such as the literacy development of non-academic adults with challenging life experiences (Serrano, Mirceva & Larena, 2010).

3. Methods
A longitudinal case study of DLG in one prison in Spain was conducted, between 2000 and 2012. The study employed the communicative methodology of research (Gómez, Puigvert & Flecha, 2011).

4. Data sources
Data collection techniques involved documentary analysis (of letters and stories written by the participants), 10 communicative daily-life stories with the participants and 2 in-depth interviews with the professionals who led the DLG in the prison for ten years.

5. Results
Our study identified a set of principles that foster the socio-emotional development of participants in the prison and aid the sustainability of the program in that setting. Those principles are connected with the dialogic nature of DLG:
─ Egalitarian dialogue: In DLG everyone can join the discussion, and it is the participants themselves who teach this principle to the newcomers. The facilitator is not an expert, but someone who is responsible for ensuring that dialogue is respected.
─ Meaning-making: The depth of the discussions promoted by classic literature opens up an opportunity for freed meaning-making among participants that escapes the walls of the prison. Kafka’s Metamorphosis played a critical role on their experience in prison.
─ Solidarity: The relationships generated in DLG go beyond the activity itself, promoting forms and spaces of mutual help that reach other areas of the prison.
─ Equality of differences: Participants positively value diversity among themselves. They see diverse and egalitarian dialogues in the DLG to make visible minority cultures, such as the Roma, and to help their knowledge taken into account.

6.Scientific significance
Our study informs of what makes DLG sustainable in a prison. Egalitarian dialogue, meaning making, solidarity and equality of differences become tools to engage in the readings of classic works at the same time as such reading develops a new sense of possibility and freedom within the world of the prison. These results on the sustainability of the program inform of the characteristics associated to the dialogic learning environment of the DLG that can be transferred to other prisons. Personal impacts of DLG in the expectations and life trajectories of the incarcerated participants becomes an area of promising research.

Authors

• Pilar Alvarez, Loyola University Andalucía

• Beatriz Carballido Villarejo, Universitat de Barcelona