‘Darker than the Dungeon’: Music, Ambivalence, and the Carceral Subject

Waller, Chris L.

doi:10.1007/s11196-018-9558-9

Cited by 8 publications

(8 citation statements)

References 28 publications

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“…Noting critically that ‘the study of music in carceral space does paint a largely empowering perspective’ (Waller, 2018: 285), Waller shows how ‘music’s relation to the internal life of the subject’ (p. 285), which he sees as central to DeNora’s concept of music as a technology of the self (DeNora, 2007), can also be ‘applied to others, and [. .…”

Section: Music As An Ambivalent Presence In the Prisonmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Musical life stories: Coherence through musicking in the prison setting

Hjørnevik¹,

Waage

Hansen

2022

Crime, Media, Culture

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Despite the strong relationships evidenced between music and identity little research exists into the significance of music in prisoners’ shifting sense of identity. This article explores musicking as part of the ongoing identity work of prisoners in light of theory on musical performance, narrative and desistance and discusses implications for penal practice and research. Through the presentation of an ethnographic study of music therapy in a low security Norwegian prison we show how participation in music activities afforded congruence between the past, the present and the projected future for participants by way of their unfolding musical life stories. Complementing existing conceptualisations of music as an agent for change, our study suggests that musicking afforded the maintenance of a coherent sense of self for participating prison inmates, whilst offering opportunities for noncoercive personal development. We argue that research into musicking in prison offers fruitful ways of tracing how the complexities inherent in processes of change are enacted in everyday prison life, and that it can advance our knowledge of relationships between culture, penal practice and desistance.

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Section: Music As An Ambivalent Presence In the Prisonmentioning

confidence: 99%

“….] used to objectify them’ (Waller, 2018: 281). With a specific focus on the ‘carceral soundscape’ (p. 281), he constructs a theory of music as a technology of power in penal systems.…”

Section: Music As An Ambivalent Presence In the Prisonmentioning

confidence: 99%

Musical life stories: Coherence through musicking in the prison setting

Hjørnevik¹,

Waage

Hansen

2022

Crime, Media, Culture

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“…Importantly, for both, affective encounters with sound and music are not necessarily positive. Indeed, numerous scholars (Grant, 2013; Herrity, 2018; Hjørnevik and Waage, 2018; Mangaoang, 2013; Rice, 2016; Waller, 2018) note the inherent tension between music in carceral settings as an emancipatory practice and as technology of control, amelioration or torture. Nonetheless, music and sound can remake spaces and allow prisoners a sense of (limited) control over their environment, ‘facilitat[ing] a sense of privacy and rehabilitation of life before incarceration in the form of musical sanctuary’ (Harbert, 2010; quoted in Herrity, 2018: 42).…”

Section: Songs With Attitude: Leap From the Noisementioning

confidence: 99%

“…Similarly, in this and our previous article (Crockett Thomas et al, 2020), we focus on developing an understanding of what the songs might do more than what they might mean . Other recent work within criminology has applied DeNora’s conceptualisation to music and sound in carceral settings (Herrity, 2018; Waller, 2018). In her ethnographic research on the significance of music in prison and on prison soundscapes, Herrity argues ‘music sustained the self – a necessary component of psychological survival in prison’ (Herrity, 2018: 41).…”

Section: Music Lyrics and Narratives In Criminal Justicementioning

confidence: 99%

“…In her ethnographic research on the significance of music in prison and on prison soundscapes, Herrity argues ‘music sustained the self – a necessary component of psychological survival in prison’ (Herrity, 2018: 41). Correcting DeNora’s overemphasis on the enabling and empowering aspects of music as a technology of self (Hesmondhalgh, 2013: 40; Waller, 2018: 285), Waller demonstrates that the uses of music in prison exemplify how empowering ‘technologies of the self’ can work alongside the technologies of punishment, discipline and control. For us, songwriting with people in criminal justice has been conceived as a dialogic activity, rather than an individualising therapeutic or ‘civilising’ process that is part of people’s punishment or rehabilitation (Crockett Thomas et al, 2020; Urie et al, 2019).…”

Section: Music Lyrics and Narratives In Criminal Justicementioning

confidence: 99%

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Re-writing punishment? Songs and narrative problem-solving

et al. 2021

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This article analyses findings from the Economic and Social Research Council/Arts and Humanities Research Council (ESRC/AHRC)-funded ‘Distant Voices – Coming Home’ project (ES/POO2536/1), which uses creative methods to explore crime, punishment and reintegration. Focusing on songs co-written in Scottish prisons, we argue that the songs serve to complicate and substantiate our grasp of what state punishment does to people, as well as perhaps affording their prison-based co-writers both moments and modalities of resistance to dominant narratives within criminal justice. In doing so, they creatively express and explore affective and perhaps even unconscious aspects of the self. We argue that our work contributes to a more expansive and considered treatment of narrative in criminology; one that admits and engages with a more diverse and creative range of expressions of experience and selfhood, all of them partial and some of them contradictory. By attending to diverse kinds of narratives embodied in these songs, we learn more about what criminalisation, penalisation and incarceration do to people and to their stories.

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Podcasts and political listening: sound, voice and intimacy in the Joe Rogan Experience

Rae

2023

Continuum

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‘Darker than the Dungeon’: Music, Ambivalence, and the Carceral Subject

Cited by 8 publications

References 28 publications

Musical life stories: Coherence through musicking in the prison setting

Musical life stories: Coherence through musicking in the prison setting

Re-writing punishment? Songs and narrative problem-solving

Podcasts and political listening: sound, voice and intimacy in the Joe Rogan Experience

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