The Ethnography of Prisons and Penal Confinement

Abstract

Centered on the ethnography of prisons and field research on penal confinement, this review maps out current developments and characterizes them in relation to key themes that shaped earlier approaches. Further internationalizing the ethnographic discussion on prisons by broadening the predominant focus on the United States and the English-speaking world, the review is organized around a main line of discussion: the prison–society relation and the articulation between intramural and extramural worlds. More or less apparent in field research, this articulation is addressed from different perspectives—within and across different scales and analytic frames—whether centered more on the workings of the institution or on prisoners and their social worlds, both within and outside walls. The porosity of prison boundaries, increasingly acknowledged, has also been problematized and ethnographically documented in different ways: from prison-in-context to interface approaches, both more reflexive and attuned to broader theoretical debates.

Introduction

“…Thus, scholarship from across a range of disciplines and continents points to an entwined, fluid relationship between two sites once understood as radically distinct objects of analyses (da Cunha 2008(da Cunha , 2014Turner and Jensen 2019;Wacquant 2002). However, it remains the case that relatively little attention has been paid to the analytic traction of traversing actors and porous borders, to help us critically inspect the productive power of boundary-making, the pervasive politics of confinement and the lived practices of submission and subversion in the face of structural exigencies.…”

Inside Out

“…1. In the first part of this section I briefly recover some of the main points I developed in a review on the ethnography of penal confinement, organized precisely around these lines of discussion (Cunha 2014). Even though the review does not include all the relevant authors, it provides a systematic overview of the different perspectives pertaining to these approaches, within and across scales and analytic frames.…”

“…This tighter frame has reshaped the action of prison personnel -and, indirectly, prisoners' social configurations (e.g. Bosworth 2007;Crewe 2009;Cunha 2014;Liebling and Arnold 2004). 3.…”

Derecho(s) generizados. Encrucijadas morales y legales para pensar la maternidad en la cárcel

“…Kalinsky (2009) nos invita a pensar la prisión como una institución y/o programa estatal más dentro de la trayectoria previsible de las personas cuyos derechos han sido sistemáticamente vulnerados en este continuo de intervenciones a lo largo de sus vidas. La apuesta de Da Cunha (2004/20052014) va en un sentido similar; identifica al sistema penitenciario como un elemento más del conjunto de instituciones, actores y territorios que configuran las redes delictivas vinculadas al tráfico de drogas. La guerra contra el narcotráfico ha resultado en una incrementación de la tasa de prisionalización y en una transformación en las formas de organización delictiva, las cuales introdujeron cambios en el perfil de la población carcelaria (Da Cunha, 2004/2005.…”