Disputes and Going Concerns in an Institution for “Troublesome” Boys

Abstract

Everett C. Hughes's classic concept of a "going concern" should stand for both entire institutions and for chains of activities within institutions. In this article the author explores this expanded version of Hughes's concept to show how staff and residents in a youth care setting interweave everyday concerns-meals, lessons, breaks, meetings, or other mundane but concerted projects-with interpersonal disputes. The author thereby offers a more nuanced understanding of how antagonist actors in institutions invoke daily affairs. The author also raises questions about the conditions under which adults can impose concerns for youth in care to preserve social order and the conditions under which youth can make trouble to criticize adults' imposed concerns.

Disciplining Freedom : Treatment Dilemmas and Subjectivity at a Detention Home for Young Men

“…Wästerfors, 2011). Highlighting the intricacies of social control work, Wästerfors (2011) found that staff responses to "interpersonal troubles" or disputes with detained boys at a Swedish detention home were quite varied (thus, not only in line with, for example, the token economy that was in use). Staff members attempted to protect the activity at hand (for example, a music lesson) and prevent a dispute from interrupting it, but also used the activity as a means of ending the dispute.…”

“…From a different perspective, ethnographers like Kivett and Warren (2002) and Wästerfors (2009bWästerfors ( , 2011 further complicate the picture of detention homes as total institutions with monolithic control over their inmates, illuminating how power or social control is not fully pervasive, but rather how it emerges as a micro-political and bidirectional phenomenon. Kivett and Warren (2002) document "the micro-politics of trouble" at a detention home in the United States that appears to embody the disciplinary gaze of a total institution, specifically through the use of a behavior modification program: token economy (TE).…”

“…In Sweden, research on SiS institutions has in recent years increased (see, for instance, Holmqvist, 2008;Holmqvist et al, 2007Holmqvist et al, , 2009Osvaldsson, 2002); however, ethnographically inspired studies are rare (but see Överlien, 2003;Wästerfors, 2009bWästerfors, , 2011. The use of video cameras in ethnographic studies of everyday life at detention homes or other forced settings appears to be quite rare (see Cromdal & Osvaldsson, 2012; for a video-based study of ART, see Andersson, 2007Andersson, , 2008.…”

“…Social control is thereby micro-political and constructed in "the minute-by-minute decision making of individual staff members" (2002, p. 31). Wästerfors (2009bWästerfors ( , 2011 similarly takes an interactional and micropolitical approach to "trouble" or disputes in detention homes for young men in Sweden. By illuminating how interpersonal trouble is neither static nor random, he challenges notions of youth in detention as "programmed troublemakers" (2009b, p. 33): as youths with individual problems that cause them to engage in troublesome actions.…”

“…This is also mirrored in research as studies of youth detention homes in Sweden are relatively scarce and mainly focus on the development and evaluation of treatment methods (Gruber, 2013; for example, Andreassen, 2003;Holmqvist, 2008;Holmqvist, Hill, & Lang, 2007Vinnerljung & Sallnäs, 2008;Westermark, Hansson, & Olsson, 2011). Few studies explore the everyday lives and practices of those working at or admitted to the detention homes (but see, for example, Andersson, 2008;Cromdal & Osvaldsson, 2012;Hill, 2005;Levin, 1998;Wästerfors, 2009bWästerfors, , 2011. This study can thus be understood as an attempt to open up "the black box" of the forced treatment of youths.…”