This article explores the use of photographs in documenting the lives of women in Santa Maria Ixcotel state prison in southern México. In living for the audience in the photos, the women provide a deeper understanding of their own experiences and those of all women behind bars. The author argues that an interplay among photographs, a textual narrative, and existing facts, statistics, and knowledge from sociological and criminological literature allows for a deeper understanding about incarcerated women's lives. The photographs are particularly important because, in lieu of the absence of literature on indigenous women in prison in Latin America, they become a powerful testimony, evidence of these women's abandonment.
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