Rod Earle

Digesting men?: ethnicity, gender and food: perspectives from a 'prison ethnography'

Drawing from an ethnographic study of men’s social relations in an English prison, this article explores the potential of attending closely to men’s practice for the light it may shed on the boundaries of punishment. Interviews with prisoners and fieldwork experiences reveal something of the way prison acts on an ethnically diverse group of men. Focusing on the way men use cooking facilities on the prison’s wings, the article explores the way men make food for themselves and each other and thereby occupy prison space with unconventional (and conventional) gender practice. Using intersectional perspectives the article shows how practices of racialization, racism, conviviality and coercion are woven into the fabric of prison life. These quotidian experiences are juxtaposed against the question of how prisons and prisoner populations represent a spectrum of violence in which gender dynamics remain under-examined. By providing glimpses of men’s lives in an English prison to reveal aspects of the ways masculinities and ethnicities interact to shape a penal regime the authors offer some resources for, and perspective on, the theorization of punishment’s boundaries.

Boys' zone stories: perspectives from a young men's prison

This article explores aspects of young men’s gender identities as they serve time in an English Young Offender Institution. Based on qualitative research, the article discusses three dimensions of the way the young men talk about their lives, inside and outside prison. It is argued that the evocation of a specific condition of being ‘on road’ is linked to forms of youthful masculine collectivity, ‘my boys’, which valorize pre-modern forms of martial masculinity. These two themes converge in the pre-eminence of ‘postcode pride’, the salience of ‘the local’ in the young men’s accounts of themselves. These aspects of the young men’s experience are explored with reference to other recent research findings on young men’s experience of ‘gang’ activity and living on the social margins.

Insider and Out Making Sense of a Prison Experience and a Research Experience

Prison ethnographers in the United Kingdom have offered rich and diverse accounts of penal interiors, and prisoners’ views and experiences have been, for the most part, reported with sensitivity, creativity, and insight. In the midst of this relatively flourishing qualitative research activity, the actual voices prisoners, and of ex-prisoners who are now prison researchers, have been relatively subdued, although there are signs that this may be about to change. In this article, I explore some of the potentials, possibilities, and problems afforded by insider research—that is, research that draws on direct experience of penal confinement—and explore whether, and how, “spending time” is different from “serving time.” As opportunities to “do prison research differently” emerge, I critically examine some of the epistemological claims and potentials of insider research, its relations to ethnography, and the relevance of advocacy groups, such as Convict Criminology.

Muslim is the new black: new ethnicities and new essentialisms in the prison

Drawing from a recent qualitative study of identity, ethnicity, and social relations in two English prisons, the authors reflect on Stuart Hall’s formulation of a new ethnicities paradigm. Using a vignette case study and the comments of a range of prisoners, they consider how persistent patterns of racism are reproduced and challenged in the prison and beyond. British and penal historical and cultural contexts are provided to facilitate an empirically informed discussion of plural and evolving racisms, new ethnicities, and Islamophobia. An argument is presented that suggests a thinly theorized understanding of ethnicity is assuming the status of a falsely benign orthodoxy, one that shrouds the familiar and painful injuries of racism.

Developing Convict Criminology Beyond North America

Despite its original vision of a community of ex-convict criminological and criminal justice experts, Convict Criminology (CC) has had difficulty with international expansion and has remained largely a North American movement. There are many reasons why this has occurred. This article reviews the efforts that have been made to internationalize CC in Europe and discusses some of the barriers it has faced. It also suggests prospects for moving the field forward in a truly international manner and the challenges that this entails.

‘Con-viviality’ and Beyond: Identity Dynamics in a Young Men’s Prison

This chapter explores the configuration of identity, social relations and ethnicity within the confines of a young men’s prison. The site of intense deprivations, referred to by Sykes (1958) as the ‘pains of imprisonment’, prisons gather together many of those people also bearing the pains of structural disenfranchisement and marginalisation which characterise deprived neighbourhoods (Wacquant, 2007).

‘Who's the Daddy?’ – Ideas About Fathers from a Young Men's Prison

Drawing from an ethnographically‐informed study of mens identities and social relations in prison, this article explores the ways in which ideas about fatherhood are institutionally deployed and personally experienced. Based on interviews and observational data in a young offender institution (YOI) for 18‐ to 21‐year‐old men, the article considers young mens orientations toward being a father and their participation in parenting classes and a ‘Fathers Inside’ group. Four vignettes are constructed to present an account of some of the issues surrounding mens experience of prison, being a man and a father, researching men in prison and gender regimes in which fathers are being rediscovered and reinvented.

Convict Criminology - Inside and Out

Convict criminology is the study of criminology by those who have first-hand experience of imprisonment. This is the first single authored book to trace the emergence of Convict Criminology and explore its relevance beyond the USA to the UK and other parts of Europe. Addressing epistemological issues of ‘insider research’, it presents uniquely reflexive scholarship combining personal experience with critical perspectives on contemporary penality. Focussing explicitly on men, it covers: • the way prisoners, ex-prisoners and prison research contribute to criminological knowledge • historical figures in criminology whose prison experiences are rarely recognised • the way racism, colonialism and class shape penal experience and social worlds Drawing from his own experience of imprisonment, prison research and criminology, the author demonstrates how this experience can expand the criminological imagination. It is a novel and compelling account for students, teachers, academics and penal practitioners. It will inform, educate and entertain anyone working in criminal justice, legal and para-legal professions and those with an interest in social justice.

General Introduction: What Ethnography Tells Us about Prisons and What Prisons Tell Us about Ethnography

The practice of ethnography as a research method has a long history that places special importance on understanding the perspectives of the people under study and of observing their activities in everyday life (Hammersley and Atkinson, 1983). It is a method used by researchers in a variety of disciplines, but it is perhaps most famously associated with social anthropology and the study of indigenous cultures (Malinowski, 1922; Evans-Pritchard, 1937; Turnbull, 1961). Ethnographers aim to produce rich and detailed accounts of people and the social processes they are embedded in. For these reasons, it is often employed by educational, health and social sciences researchers in a wide variety of institutional, community and other social settings.

What do ethnographers do in prison

Rod Earle reports on three papers from the opening panel of ‘Resisting The Eclipse: An International Symposium on Prison Ethnography’