Comments on: The Anthropology of Prisons?

By: K MacLeish

K MacLeish — Sun, 20 Dec 2009 06:50:08 +0000

While not technically anthropological, Ted Conover’s immersion journalism account Newjack: Guarding Sing Sing has a lot of interesting stuff to say about CO-prisoner relations. Having read it a while ago, my memory of it is a little foggy–I’d be curious to hear what folks who do anthropology of prisons think about it.

By: Tomasjj

Tomasjj — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 10:50:52 +0000

As an ethnographic contribution, there are chapters in Alen Feldman’s “Formations of Violence” from Northern Ireland, and more specifically Maze Prison.
IIRC, prison jargon, the roles of inmates/guards, spatial-power relations are just a few of the issues touched upon.

By: Jason Baird Jackson

Jason Baird Jackson — Sun, 06 Dec 2009 16:54:09 +0000

I also really like Spradley’s “You Owe Yourself a Drunk.” Separate from its early treatment of jail ethnography, it is also a great text for showing what an ethnoscience ethnography looks like. As an ethnography of homeless nomads pursued by police, etc. I like to read it paired with Nels Anderson’s “The Hobo” (1923), which is classic example of ethnography in Chicago School Sociology.

By: Benni

Benni — Sun, 06 Dec 2009 15:39:48 +0000

I much liked James P. Spradley’s “You owe yourself a drunk” ( http://www.waveland.com/Titles/Spradley.htm ) about urban nomads / homeless drinkers and their treatment by authorities and esp. in jail in Seattle in the late 1960’s. I percieved it as a great introduction to urban anthropology, marginalized groups and drug culture in western societies, maybe viewable as a kind of forerunner to Philippe Bourgois’ work on crack/heroin culture.

By: Richard Irvine

Richard Irvine — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 03:34:43 +0000

I would very strongly recommend Adam Reed’s _Papua New Guinea’s Last Place: Experiences of Constraint in a Postcolonial Prison_

By: yalie

yalie — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 22:05:37 +0000

Don Brahman does neat work on prisons. He has a PhD in anthro as well as a JDrom Yale and is now at the George WAshington U law school.

http://www.culturalcognition.net/braman

Here is his book, Doing Time on the Outside:
http://www.amazon.com/Doing-Time-Outside-Incarceration-America/dp/047211381X

By: ckelty

ckelty — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 05:26:57 +0000

wow. right on folks! thanks for all the excellent suggestions!

By: Adam Leeds

Adam Leeds — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 05:12:13 +0000

Oleg Kharkhordin’s book, The Collective and the Individual in Russia has some fantastic stuff on Soviet prison culture that, from your short message, sounds like it might be very germane.

By: Phil Goodman

Phil Goodman — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 01:03:51 +0000

Also useful perhaps would be Chad Trulson and James Marquart’s recent 2009 book First Available Cell, in which they discuss the desegregation of Texas prisons in the last quarter of the 20th century.

By: Ashveer Singh

Ashveer Singh — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 18:11:09 +0000

Brackette Williams is working on supermax prisons:
http://www.soros.org/initiatives/usprograms/focus/justice/programs/justice_fellows/grantees/williams_2008

By: Barbara Miller

Barbara Miller — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 14:03:07 +0000

Foucault’s book should definitely be on the list–I agree with Chris about that and Andrew about how his ideas about power etc are now in the mainstream of much work in cultural anthropology

By: Pete

Pete — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 06:56:48 +0000

Let me echo the earlier commentator who mentioned Bruce Jackson’s work. His classic book “Wake Up Dead Man” is a great place to start.

http://www.amazon.com/Wake-Up-Dead-Man-Southern/dp/0820321583

By: urbanmkr

urbanmkr — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 02:34:00 +0000

See also Sharon Shalev (2009) Supermax: Controlling risk through solitary confinement (Willan Publishing) Paperback ISBN: 978-1-84392-408-1.
Shalev is a sociologist (PhD from the LSE which has an admirable critical criminology group); the book isn’t based on lengthy fieldwork but it does have a wealth of detail. I found it particularly interesting on the architecture of supermax security prisons.

By: Andrew Galley

Andrew Galley — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 02:15:19 +0000

Foucault is out of fashion? Are you sure he just hasn’t become so influential he’s part of the background intellectual radiation by now? 🙂

By: Chris

Chris — Sun, 29 Nov 2009 23:40:49 +0000

At the risk of suggesting something somewhat archaic, I will note that a classic work is _Discipline & Punish: The Birth of the Prison_ by Michel Foucault.

Foucault is out of fashion these days (with good reason), but it’s still an interesting work.