The conformation of the university identity in contexts of imprisonment: from agonism to antagonism

Abstract

From the political philosophy of Ernesto Laclau, the category of antagonism is retaken as the nodal element for the construction of identity, antagonism by the penitentiary institution and even some groups of inmates who deploy a whole series of practices, values and strategies to prevent "Being" university students; The prison area and its practices limit other forms of being that are not those of inmate-inmate-delinquent, this antagonism is solved in the formula "them or us”. Faced with this original antagonism, we were able to show how the presence of the Autonomous University of the City of Mexico (UACM) with its Higher Education Program in Federal District Detention Centers (PESCER) introduces a dynamic different from that of prison dynamics, in so much so that all educative process does not part of the "they or we", but of the "they and we"; It is the inclusive conjunction that allows to break with the practices and values of the prison institution, becoming a space for meeting and construction and not for the assimilation, disappearance or dissolution of differences and identities, in these practices also put into play the contingency as well as the decision and the choice on the part of the university students. In this construction of the university identity is also displayed the membership of an institution, the affiliation to certain values and the construction of new practices and relationships as a university community.