Prisoner subjectivity: Exploring forms of self-government and everyday acts of resistance

Abstract

Through a qualitative approach of seven life-sentenced prisoner interviews, I explore prisoner practices, relations, and perceptions to gain a certain insight into how the prisoners manage themselves and their sentence. The research findings reveal that, through self-forming activities and practices, prisoners self-govern their conduct in an attempt to maintain an autonomous sense of self while attempting to improve their chances for release. I conclude that a Foucauldian analysis of subjectivity is a useful tool to investigate the prison as it reveals how prisoners continually negotiate their concept of 'self' between the goals of the prison and with their own ways of 'doing' and 'being'. Despite its controlling nature, prisoners subtly resist individualizing forms of power that seek to submit them towards conformity. Such an approach opens a space for prisoner agency to emerge and directs our attention towards those forming activities of the prison that fail to correspond with the lived realities of the prisoner and their concept of 'self'. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)