Book Review: Feminism, Violence Against Women, and Law Reform: Decolonial Lessons from Ecuador by Silvana Tapia Tapia
| Author | Jenny Korkodeilou |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/13624806231152214 |
| Published date | 01 May 2023 |
| Date | 01 May 2023 |
| Subject Matter | Book Reviews |
late 19th century has involved a form of modernizing reform that expanded the prison
systems of the region. There is a clear synergy between the chapter and others that
expose the prison industrial complex for its exploitative capitalist endeavours. In her
chapter on drug rehabilitation programmes in Venezuela, Caroline Parker (Chapter 10)
highlights how the promise of producing the ready-for-work ‘certified and re-educated
ex-addict’(p. 214) is undercut by the capture of those completing the programme
within a limited and under-waged labour market. Parker speaks of a ‘vernacular
professionalization’(ibid.) to represent this duality. Indeed, Sally Engle Merry’s
concept of vernacularization is present throughout the collection of essays (even
where it may not be explicitly mentioned), where scholars speak of localized adaptations
to governance, cultural categories, or forms of solidarity.
So, what can be done about the troubling prison worlds, beyond troubling the norma-
tive understanding of Latin American prison worlds? Many approaches that advocate for
progressive change in low-resource carceral contexts centre on human rights arguments
allied to UN minimum standards for the treatment of prisoners, such as the Mandela
Rules. Jennifer Pierce (Chapter 5) contends that such an overt focus on material
changes in conditions may not be what prisoners actually want. She explains that in
the Dominican Republic, prisoners were more concerned with fair treatment and rated
methods of recourse to abuse of authority as more critical than the prison conditions.
While international prison reform intentions may be positive, an occidentalist denial of
difference across contexts may prevent the realization of real-world change. Loïc
Wacquant’s chapter offers perhaps the most overtly solution-based reading of the situ-
ation. The text relates to a presentation given to Gendarmeria de Chile, Division of
Human Rights, and represents the desire for change imbued throughout the book. The
theoretical focus and direct delivery may initially seem incongruous with the collection,
yet it raises the issue central to the book—are we asking the right questions?
Furthermore, who should be providing the answers?
Silvana Tapia Tapia, Feminism, Violence Against Women, and Law Reform: Decolonial Lessons from
Ecuador, Routledge: London, 2022; 192 pp.: 9780367566470, £96 (hbk).
Reviewed by: Jenny Korkodeilou, Royal Holloway, University of London, UK
Through her book, Silvana Tapia Tapia offers a strong, carefully crafted, multi-layered
and meticulously researched argument by using the intriguing case of Ecuador and
sharing with us a refreshing, if not necessary, glimpse into the feminist Global South’s
perspective and legal governance. Her central theses are that: (a) criminal law is often
employed as another tool to oppress and manage populations; (b) criminal law is gov-
erned by liberal legalism, which in turn is underpinned and governed by colonial
ideals regarding the family, gender and race; and (c) the relationship between neoliberal-
ism and penal expansion is more complex and nuanced than we think.
In the Introduction the author unpacks the key ideas comprising her approach and sug-
gests an alternative critical lens, that of a decolonial feminist critique premised on the
rather bold belief that human rights help, rather than avert, colonial and carceral
352 Theoretical Criminology 27(2)
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