A comparative analysis between Foucault and Elias: emergence of prisons and the permanence of the passionate punitive fervor

• Autor(a) principal: Cordeiro, Veridiana Domingos
• Data de Publicação: 2017
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: por
• Título da fonte: Vértices (Campos dos Goitacazes. Online)
• Texto Completo: https://editoraessentia.iff.edu.br/index.php/vertices/article/view/7330
• topic: Norbert Elias; Michel Foucault; Prison; Civilizing process; Punishment; Norbert Elias; Michel Foucault; Prisão; Processo civilizador; Punição

The hegemony of prisons as universal punitive measure, in contrast to previous public sentencing, is a historic fact that marked the transition to modernity. Considering this paradoxical scenario that remained in modern society after the emergence of prisons, this article aims to provide sociological explanations of the transition  from  public forms of punishment to those encapsulated and distant from society. The study is based on  two authors who seem to be opposite in both theory and method: the German sociologist Norbert Elias and the French philosopher Michel Foucault. By different routes, both provide explanations on this paradoxical situation, although keeping  points of contact. We also point out how that this diagnosis was somehow, years earlier, present in the Durkheim's writings. This plurality of explanations, derived from distinct theoretical traditions of the same phenomenon, demonstrates that the permanence of prisons and its mismatch with contemporary society is an objective social phenomenon, regardless of the sociological approach.