U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government, Department of Justice.

NCJRS Virtual Library

The Virtual Library houses over 235,000 criminal justice resources, including all known OJP works.
Click here to search the NCJRS Virtual Library

Reading Difference Differently?: Identity, Epistemology and Prison Ethnography

NCJ Number
230054
Journal
British Journal of Criminology Volume: 50 Issue: 2 Dated: March 2010 Pages: 360-378
Author(s)
Coretta Phillips; Rod Earle
Date Published
March 2010
Length
19 pages
Annotation

Prison ethnographers have tended to downplay the epistemological and methodological dilemmas relating to identity and positionality, which have been more commonly rehearsed in anthropological and sociological ethnographies.

Abstract

This paper explores these issues through a reflexive interrogation of a study of prisoner identities and social relations in two male prisons, with a particular focus on race/ethnicity, class and gender. Drawing from interactions with two prisoners as case studies, it applies Walkerdine et al.'s (2001) psycho-social analytical frame to illustrate how the subjectivities and biographies of researchers are implicated in the dynamics of prison research encounters and analysis. In doing so, it considers the epistemological implications of reflexive practice for interpreting the prison field. References (Published Abstract)