Identity, Imprisonment, and Narrative Configuration

Abstract

This article addresses the role of self-narratives for coping with the laws of captivity. By focusing on how confinement can disrupt narrative coherence, the intention is to examine the role of self-narratives for interpreting previous events and anticipating future actions. Drawing on a range of interdisciplinary research on self-identity, imprisonment, and offender narratives, this article highlights how narrative reconstruction can alter our desires, commitments, behavior, beliefs, and values. By (re)telling a story about our lives, it is possible to reinterpret existing circumstances and make new connections between our past, present, and future selves. Whereas research suggests the importance of narrative reconstruction for protecting against a sense of meaninglessness, this article shows how self-narratives have the potential to be empowering and divisive. The final part of the article examines how the narratives inmates construct about themselves and others can serve to legitimize violence against other prisoners.

The Effects of Incarceration on Youths’ Sense of Identity and Music-Based Rehabilitation: An Exploratory Pilot Study

“…Although minor, decisions such as when to wake up, eat, go outside, and call family or friends vary between individuals; they make each person unique. Other identifying characteristics include clothes, possessions, hobbies, and leisure pursuits-all of which are strictly regulated (Hardie-Bick, 2018). The loss of autonomy and control in these identifiers becomes a loss of self.…”

“…The potential of the prisonization process to "rigidify" within an individual has implications towards psychological well-being and recidivism (Hardie-Bick, 2018;National Research Council et al, 2014). There is a stark difference in the mindset of someone who experiences prisonization, with feelings of isolation and loneliness particularly magnified, enabling an "us against them" mentality (Lerman, 2009).…”

“…Despite these safeguards, prisonization encourages a shift towards antisocial norms (Lerman, 2009), making it difficult to establish or reestablish these important relationships. Additionally, being removed from a predictable and recognizable environment can skew one's sense of self (Hardie-Bick, 2018). Viewing the social dynamics within correctional facilities as a unique "culture" provides a lens through which prisonization-and its effects on identity-can be viewed.…”

A Critical Discourse Analysis of an Australian Incarcerated Trans Woman's Letters of Complaint and Self‐Advocacy

“…The project of identity formation and assertion within the context of the prison is “profoundly complicated” ( Erzikova, Mills, and Sparks 2014 , 143), for all incarcerated persons owing to a poverty of agentic choices within a system designed to homogenize its inhabitants. Self-narrative within the carceral system is bound by the constraints inherent in the system ( Hardie-Bick 2018 ; Sanders et al 2022 ) and incarcerated persons face the task of constructing self-narratives that allow for survival within hostile and dehumanizing environments. For this reason, self-narratives within this context are frequently pessimistic and self-condemning ( Hardie-Bick 2018 ).…”

“…Self-narrative within the carceral system is bound by the constraints inherent in the system ( Hardie-Bick 2018 ; Sanders et al 2022 ) and incarcerated persons face the task of constructing self-narratives that allow for survival within hostile and dehumanizing environments. For this reason, self-narratives within this context are frequently pessimistic and self-condemning ( Hardie-Bick 2018 ). Such a context leaves inhabitants who contravene normative identity categories vulnerable to stigmatization as social deviants, and following Goffman (1961 , 1963 ), we note that total institutions such as prisons, mental institutions, and boot camps function as “forcing houses for changing persons” (1961, 12), the overarching purpose of which is to reshape their subjects as compliant and socially acceptable citizens.…”