The Palgrave Handbook of Prison Ethnography provides an expansive overview of the challenges presented by qualitative, and particularly ethnographic, enquiry. The chapters reflect upon the means by which ethnographers aim to gain understanding, make sense of what they learn and the way they represent their finished work. The Handbook offers urgent insights relevant to current trends in the growth of imprisonment worldwide. In an era of mass incarceration, human-centric ethnography provides an important counter to quantitative analysis and the audit culture on which prisons are frequently judged.
The Handbook is divided into four parts. Part I ('About Prison Ethnography') assesses methodological, theoretical and pragmatic issues related to the use of ethnographic and qualitative enquiry in prisons. Part II ('Through Prison Ethnography') considers the significance of ethnographic insights in terms of wider social or political concerns. Part III ('Of Prison Ethnography') analyses different aspects of the roles ethnographers take and how they negotiate their research settings. Part IV ('For Prison Ethnography') includes contributions that convincingly extend the value of prison ethnography beyond the prison itself.
Bringing together contributions by some of the world's leading scholars in criminology and prison studies, this authoritative volume maps out new directions for future research. It will be an indispensable resource for practitioners, students, academics and researchers who use qualitative social research methods to further their understanding of prisons.
Foreword: What Has Prison Ethnography to Offer in an Age of Mass Incarceration?; Yvonne Jewkes General Introduction: What Ethnography Tells Us about Prisons and What Prisons Tell Us about Ethnography; Deborah H. Drake, Rod Earle and Jennifer Sloan PART I: ABOUT ETHNOGRAPHY 1. Research 'Inside' Viewed from 'Outside': Reflections on Prison Ethnography; Martyn Hammersley 2. Walking Among the Graves of the Living: Reflections about Doing Prison Research from an Abolitionist Perspective; David Scott 3. Prisons Research Beyond the Conventional: Dialogue, 'Creating Miracles' and Staying Sane in a Maximum Security Prison; Alison Liebling, Helen Arnold and Christina Straub 4. "Get in, Get out, Go back?": Transitioning from Prison Ethnography to Prison Policy Research in Russia; Laura Piacentini 5. Ethnography of Writings in Prison: Professional Power Struggles Surrounding a Digital Notebook in a Prison for Minors; Gilles Chantraine and Nicolas Sallée 6. Closeness, Distance and Honesty in PrisonEthnography; Ben Crewe and Alice Ievins 7. Going in Green: Reflections on the Challenges of 'Getting in, Getting on, and Getting out' for Doctoral Prisons Researchers; Jennifer Sloan and Serena Wright PART II: THROUGH ETHNOGRAPHY 8. Performing Ethnography: Infiltrating Prison Spaces; Andrew M. Jefferson 9. The Perfume of Sweat: Prison Research through Deleuzian Lenses; Elisabeth Fransson and Berit Johnsen 10. Ethnography: Exploring Methodological Nuances in Feminist Research with Men Incarcerated for Sexual Offences; Benita Moolman 11. Writing Bad: Prison Ethnography and the Problem of 'Tone'; James B. Waldram 12. Prison Ethnography at the Threshold of Race, Reflexivity and Difference; Rod Earle and Coretta Phillips 13. Finding Secrets and Secret Findings: Confronting the Limits of the Ethnographer's Gaze; Deborah H. Drake 14. Ethnographic Imagination in the Field of the Prison; Lorna A. Rhodes PART III: OF ETHNOGRAPHY 15. Insider Ethnography or The Tale of the Prison Governor's New Clothes; Jamie Bennett 16. Changing Hats: Transiting between Practitioner and Researcher Roles; Lilian Ayete-Nyampong 17. 'To Thine Own Self Be True': Having Faith in the Prison Researcher; Lindsay Whetter 18. Situating the Self in Prison Research: Power, Identity and Epistemology; Abigail Rowe 19. Re-Entry to Prison: Transition from HMP Researcher to 'Independent' Researcher; Lucy Carr 20. The Ethnographic Practitioner; Joel Harvey PART IV: FOR ETHNOGRAPHY 21. Global Prison Ethnography; Thomas Ugelvik 22. Accessing and Witnessing Prison Practice in Uganda; Tomas Max Martin 23. Deviation and Limitations of (Prison) Ethnography: Reflections on Fieldwork in an Indian Prison; Mahuya Bandyopadhyay 24. Unique Position: Dual identities as Prison Researcher and Ex-prisoner; William Davies 25. Mixing Detention Cultures: The Belgian - Dutch Case; Kristel Beyens and Miranda Boone
