ABSTRACT
Transcarceral spaces exist in combination with, an embodied sense of the 'carceral' which is similarly mobile beyond the prison wall through the relocation of released prisoners. This chapter explores the experience of prison transportation in Russia through this framework of liminality. Prison research is always ethically complex, and this is particularly true in Russia, given its problematic history of prisoners' human rights. Prisons are not simply institutions which correspond to crime; rather, they are reflective of and mediate social, political, and cultural values, both at the level of the carceral state, and the 'individual prison'. The sense of powerlessness experienced in this context was exacerbated by the transgression of certain rules pertaining to prisoner transport and the segregation of certain groups of prisoners. The chapter describes that the example of prisoner transportation in the contemporary Russian federation to suggest that the prison wall is permeable in that 'transcarceral' spaces exist beyond its assumed boundaries.
