Toward an Anthropology of Prisons

Abstract

The late twentieth century saw an intense expansion of the prison system in the United States during the same period in which Foucault's Discipline and Punish influenced academic approaches to power and subjection. This article reviews the history, sociology, and anthropology of the prison, as well as some recent popular critiques of the current situation. It highlights critical perspectives on modern forms of punishment and reform and suggests areas in which an anthropology of prisons might take up questions of modernity, subjection, classification, social suffering, and ethnographic possibility in the context of an increasingly politicized and racialized system of incarceration.

Deporte entre rejas. ¿Algo más que control social?

“…Como señala Rhodes (2001), los obstáculos y las dificultades para hacer investigación en las prisiones no deberían frenar a los investigadores sociales si de verdad quieren comprender los significados presentes en estas instituciones y desafiar al lenguaje, los símbolos y las prácticas sociales que mantienen el sufrimiento y el castigo dentro del sistema penitenciario. En este sentido, el deporte y el ejercicio, como cualquier otra práctica social, son símbolos y medios comunicativos llenos de significado con los que las personas comparten sus experiencias y expectativas, se sitúan en el seno de una comunidad y sirven para construir su identidad.…”

Situating the Self in Prison Research

“…This discussion has its origins in the process I began then of reflecting on and trying to account for my methods. For many prison researchers whose methods include participant observation of some kind, claiming the term "ethnography" raises some fraught questions about the extent to which we really can participate in or gain access to prison life, and in exactly what ways our research should or should not be regarded as ethnographic (Rhodes, 2001). Few experience what it means to sleep in a locked cell, for example, or to dispense the authority of the penal system.…”

Female inmates perspectives on incarceration and correctional education at Coffee Creek Correctional Facility

“…In her work, "Toward an Anthropology of Prisons," Loma Rhodes categorizes writing on prisons into two types, the first, "consists of normalizing discourses;" while the second, "attempts more self-reflective and problematizing approaches, while also revealing the difficulty of escaping the prison's disciplinary orbit" (Rhodes, 2001). She then breaks down the latter category into four types of writing that anthropology would be most beneficial to, they include:…”

“…(a) contemporary critiques directed against the numbing effects of the current situation; (b) efforts, particularly following Foucault, to revisit and revise our understanding of prison history; ( c) sociological and anthropological work that attempts an entry into and a direct engagement in the interior of the prison; and ( d) work that addresses women as prisoners and problematizes the predominance of masculine perspectives in and on the prison (Rhodes, 2001 ).…”