Situating the Self in Prison Research: Power, Identity and Epistemology

Abstract

Despite the central importance of ethnographic methods to sociological understandings of imprisonment, ethnographies of prison life have tended to evade ideas of "connectedness" between researcher and participant. This arguably underplays the epistemological possibilities of the unique characteristic of participant observation: the presence of the embodied, subjectively perceiving researcher in the field. Using data from English women's prisons, this article argues that attending to the (inter)subjective dimensions of ethnographic research can bring gains in sociological understanding. The analysis considers moments of disruption in field research, exploring themes of emotion, identity, and power. It focuses particularly on experiences of being positioned and misplaced by prisoners and prison staff, and of negotiating a researcher identity as a gay woman in a field in which sexuality is a pervasive theme. It is suggested that making the self visible in the text offers both substantive insights and a response to some of the dilemmas generated by even marginal participation in a complex field like a prison.

What about ethics? Developing qualitative research in confinement settings

“…This explicit awareness also includes the relationship of ethnographers with their interlocutors, emotional and intellectual involvement, proximity and distance, as well as navigation between different groups and power structures (Cunha, 2002;Liebling, 2001;Nielsen, 2010;Sparks, 2002;Sloan & Drake, 2013;King & Wincup, 2000). (Cunha, 2014: 50) As researchers we have been questioning at different times how our diverse identity belongings undermined or afforded contact with different social groups inside the confinement settings (see also Crewe, 2014;Rowe, 2014;Piacentini, 2007;Sparks, 2002;Liebling, 2001;Arendell, 1997). In Gomes's first study, if age was an element that facilitated more empathetic contact with younger male and female prisoners, gendered and age-related ethnic affiliation in some cases acted as an obstacle in the interviewing process, in particular with interviews conducted with adult male Roma prisoners.…”

A qualitative assessment of an abstinence-oriented therapeutic community for prisoners with substance use disorders in Kyrgyzstan

“…Through this process, we acknowledged the epistemological limits of our comprehension of the participants' lived experiences and aimed to push these limits by triangulating our collective understanding embedded in our diverse experiences and training [25]. Most importantly, by challenging our emerging findings from different disciplinary perspectives and combing our data for possible negative cases, we strove to maintain a balance between closeness, distance, and honesty in our representation of participants' lived experiences and concerns [26].…”

The Craft of Doing Qualitative Research in Prisons

“…Several authors describe the prison structure as making it difficult for an outsider to assume anything other than a marginal position, preventing him/her from becoming 'one of them' (Crewe 2009;Jacobs 1977;Mathiesen 1965;Rowe 2014). Tournel (2014) experienced the complexity of doing research in a 'low trust environment' (Liebling assisted by Arnold 2004) with prison officers who were highly suspicious of outsiders in general, and of researchers in particular.…”