Plunging into the belly of the beast

While my thesis primarily focusses upon the embodied experience of inmates who appear in court by video link from prison, I'm also reflecting upon my embodied experience of conducting a prison ethnography – an immersion of my body into a 'hostile' environment for the purposes of gathering evidence and rich verbatim data for my thesis. I argue that places of incarceration are non-neutral, closed finite spaces that create specific phenomenological experiences, spatial relationships and human responses (Bollnow 1963: 18-19) for both inmates appearing remotely in court from prison, and for a researcher visiting to gather evidence.

I question what I, as a researcher, have gained from my physical entry into the opaque carceral world, plunging into “the belly of the beast” (Wacquant 2002: 385-9) and my subsequent process of reflection. Yvonne Jewkes argues that the researcher may be actively reflexive of their personal encounter while still maintaining academic standards of epistemological and theoretical engagement (Jewkes 2012: 72). By interrogating the self and the lived experience of conducting prison research, the reflexive researcher may add humanity to data, animate the dynamics and nuances of the highly charged environment of a prison to more fully articulate and critique the penal system. 

Well, that's what I'm aiming for ...

http://www.nj.com/hudson/index.ssf/2011/02/west_new_york_police_charge_qu.html

accessed 06/03/13

A friend and PhD candidate, also involved in prison research, has just sent me a link to this recent publication: 

Imprint: Criminologische Studies
Available
€ 25,95
ISBN: 9789057182631
216 pages
Publishing date: 15/02/2013

• Contents
• Google Book Search

THE PAINS OF DOING CRIMINOLOGICAL RESEARCH

Kristel Beyens, Jenneke Christiaens, Bart Claes, Steven De Ridder, Hanne Tournel, Hilde Tubex

http://www.aspeditions.be/article.aspx?article_id=THEPAI818J&langue=en-gb

According to the link: 

"Handbooks of research mainly focus on research methods and techniques and leave the person of the researcher out of focus. This book explicitly starts from the experiences of criminology researchers and tells about the ‘pains’ they encounter when doing research. By giving voice to the researchers themselves, this book fills a gap that is rarely touched upon in the classical textbooks. These tales of the field bear witness to the often hidden difficulties and pitfalls of doing research and focus on often-neglected questions. What does it mean to do research in a hyper masculine environment such as a prison? What are the challenges to get access to a police organization or to private intelligence organizations and private security companies? How does a researcher cope with her/his own emotions during fieldwork? How does an ex-convict experience the process ofbecoming a researcher? What are the hidden or unexpected problems of publishing? What are the challenges of doing comparative research?

These are only a few questions that are dealt with in this book, which is written by researchers for researchers and students. Although it starts from a criminological perspective, researchers from other disciplines will also benefit from the sharing and comparing of similar experiences.

This book is written by scholars of the Criminology Department of the Vrije Universiteit Brussel. They are all members of the research group Crime and Society (CRiS)."

I'll add this to the ever-growing 'must-read' pile.

Transcription: voices from prison

Now that I've completed my interviews with inmates about their subjective experience of video links, it's time to transcribe the audio recordings. It is such a slow process as I'm aiming to create an accurate record of their voices, with all the idiosyncratic phrasing, paraverbals and utterances that come with conversation. As I go backwards and forwards through the recordings, I recall each person's face and body language. Their (now) disembodied voices reveal something of their personality or emotional state during the interview: despair, distress, powerlessness, resignation as well as apathy, distrust and considerable humour. I've also become aware of the background noises - the sounds of incarceration as prisoners and officers interact (not always politely), doors slam, announcements or reprimands are made over a PA, and then there's the slightly invasive muzak ('The first cut is the deepest') of Gloria Jean's cafe at one correctional centre.
I recorded 31 interviews and I've now transcribed 21 of them ... only ten more to go! Here I am contemplating spending more time in front of the computer screen:

Ethnography and Voyeurism

As I've now completed my fieldwork in prison, it's good to reflect upon the experience. The ethical tensions of prison ethnography cannot be ignored, and this has come up in discussions over the last couple of days with academics and other doctoral candidates. Is prison ethnography inherently coercive and voyeuristic? Or does it represent an opportunity for researchers to be the ears and eyes that can reveal a world inaccessible to most? More stuff to contemplate.

Grounding Law

I've been at the Melbourne Doctoral Forum on Legal Theory 'Grounding Law' which has been a really well curated conference featuring diverse and challenging theoretical papers. I presented in the first panel 'Techne and Technology' with my paper 'Video Conferencing from Prison: Reconceptualising the Place and Space of Criminal Law'... much discussion and response followed, useful to the ever-evolving thesis.

http://www.law.unimelb.edu.au/index.cfm?objectid=DCA83080-2698-11E1-B6610050568D0140&diaryid=6227

Art & Surveillance

As I'm in the process of drafting a paper "The artist as voyeur" that probes how surveillance is appropriated by artists both as a methodology and canvas, it was great to come across this issue (how did I miss it?!):

http://www.artlink.com.au/issues/3130/art-26-surveillance/

Luckily,  a back issue was available and has just arrived in my PO box. Now, off to read ...

The Choir: story from a South African Prison

Currently on SBS TV is The Choir directed by Michael Davie. Apparently shot over several years, the film shows the story of Jabulani Shabangu, both a victim and perpetrator of crime and now incarcerated in Leeukwop Prison, South Africa. He is recruited into the prison choir that goes on to compete at the National Prisoner Choir Competition. The story tells of the transformative possibilities of music and immersion in a new community, even within the closed environment of prison.

http://www.sbs.com.au/films/movie/3304/The_Choir
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0929735/plotsummary

Watch the trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g59RZCsxEkA

Prison ethnography continued

With thanks to various online friends (Fabio and Maggie via crimspace, facebook and mendeley) who are also researching prisons, here are some more references:

Ben Crewe, The Prisoner Society: Power, Adaptation and Social Life in an English Prison
http://www.bookdepository.co.uk/Prisoner-Society-Ben-Crewe/9780199653546

Patenaude, A.L., 2004.No promises, but I’m willing to listen and tell what I hear: Conducting qualitative research among prison inmates and staff. The Prison Journal, 84(4 suppl), p.69S–91S.

Crewe, B. & Maruna, S., 2006. Self-narratives and ethnographic fieldwork. The Sage handbook of fieldwork, pp.109–123.

Alison Liebling's idea of "appreciative inquiry" a bit, and Dot Golding's work in WA is interesting. Other prison researchers like Ben Crewe are also a great help and I found Mark Halsey's work with juveniles in WA great. 

More reading ... just what I like!

Prison ethnography

As my research increasingly implicates me in the world of prisoners, it's been good to engage with some literature dealing with prison ethnography, including:

• Loic Wacquant, “The Curious Eclipse of Prison Ethnography in the Age of Mass Incarceration.” Ethnography 3-4 (Winter 2002), Special issue on “In and Out of the Belly of the Beast: Dissecting the Prison”: 371-397. http://loicwacquant.net/debates/theory-and-ethnography/
• James Sutton, "An Ethnographic Account pf Doing Survey Research in Prison: Descriptions, Reflections, and Suggestions from the Field" Qualitative Sociology Review, Vol VII, Issue 2 - August 2011
• James B Waldram, "Challenges of Prison Ethnography"Anthropology News January 2009 p. 4
• Shanta Singh, "Being a Criminology Ethnographer in a South African Prison: A Search for Dynamics and Prevalence of HIV/AIDS in the Westville Prison, Durban, South Africa" J. Soc. Sci., 15(1): 71-82 (2007)
• I missed this conference on 'Resisting the Eclipse: An International Symposium on Prison Ethnography http://www.open.ac.uk/icccr/events/prison-ethnography/

Anyone got any other suggestions?

Image source: http://www.onelargeprawn.co.za/2011/03/15/marked-men-russian-prison-tattoos-2/

Prison fieldwork commences

Google maps

Over the last few weeks I've commenced my fieldwork in  two NSW correctional centres. The process has been intense and not without difficulties as I try to negotiate inmates' (understandable) reluctance to be interviewed and the prison system's occasional partial or full lockdowns.

Nevertheless the work has been rewarding and I've found willing inmate participants to be both articulate and insightful of their experiences in using video links between prison and courtrooms. Corrective Services' staff have been incredibly helpful and obliging making the whole process as smooth as possible.

Bodies in Distress

This is slightly old news now but I just realised that I hadn't blogged about this already ... Last month I took part in 'Bodies in Distress' during Critical Animals (This is Not Art festival in Newcastle) at The Lock-Up. The event, organised by Gabriel Watts from the ARC Centre of Excellence for the History of Emotions, was a collaboration between researchers Drs Una McIlvenna and Rebecca McNamara and artists Mimi Kelly and me. 

The event commenced with Grace Turner singing 17th century execution ballads (beautifully) in a small cell of The Lock-Up while Una provided insights into the ballads. Throughout the performance was Mimi's ethereal and haunting video installation and haze machine serendipitously puffing smoke every time Grace sang of a death by fire. Two cells up the corridor was my audio piece 'Felonia de se' (felony of the self) installed in the historic padded cell. My soundscape was a response to medieval legal records concerning suicide cases in England, as researched by Rebecca. I aimed to evoke uneasy imagery through text fragments and dark, otherworldly audio loops.

http://www.historyofemotions.org.au/news-media/news-listing/bodies-in-distress-at-critical-animals.aspx

A panel discussion followed concerning sin, death, punishment, corporeality and the intersections of academic research and artistic practice. A fun day out!

http://criticalanimals.files.wordpress.com/2012/10/bodies-in-distress.jpg