Recovering Identity: Criminalized Women's Fight for Dignity and Freedom

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Recovering Identity examines a critical tension in criminalized women's identity work. Through in-depth qualitative and photo-elicitation interviews, Cesraéa Rumpf shows how formerly incarcerated women engaged recovery and faith-based discourses to craft rehabilitated identities, defined in opposition to past identities as "criminal-addicts." While these discourses made it possible for women to carve out spaces of personal protection, growth, and joy, they also promoted individualistic understandings of criminalization and the violence and dehumanization that followed. Honoring criminalized women's stories of personal transformation, Rumpf nevertheless strongly critiques institutions' promotion of narratives that impose lifelong moral judgment while detracting attention from the structural forces of racism, sexism, and poverty that contribute to women's vulnerability to violence.


Author: Cesraéa Rumpf
Publisher: University of California Press
Published: 05/02/2023
Pages: 232
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.80lbs
Size: 8.90h x 6.00w x 0.70d
ISBN13: 9780520376991
ISBN10: 0520376994
BISAC Categories:
- Social Science | Criminology
- Social Science | Gender Studies
- Social Science | Sociology | General

About the Author
Cesraéa Rumpf is Associate Director of Gender and Women's Studies at the University of Illinois Chicago.