ABSTRACT
This chapter deals with prisons as emotional containers in which inmates and prison guards within the confined space of a ‘total institution’ – characterized by asymmetrical power positions, a potential for violence and constant surveillance – engage in negotiating roles, exchanging emotions and in developing relationships. Although many of the different emotional aspects of prison life have been previously researched and analysed, this chapter seeks to collect and expand on some of these insights. The chapter starts out by revisiting relevant criminological and sociological literature on prison life as ‘emotion culture’. Here the focus is on how prisons are in many ways breeding grounds for a multitude of emotional ambivalences – friendship and animosity, trust and suspicion, loyalty and confrontation, honour and shame and so on. The chapter documents and discusses the emotional strains and affective negotiations that goes on between prison guards and inmates, and it testifies to the fact that conducting research within prison settings routinely places the researcher in the position as a potential threat to the delicate emotional microcosm of the carceral institution. Following this, the chapter also discusses some of the ethical and emotional dilemmas and problems involved in doing prison research based on the experiences of previous researchers and on a recent project investigating prison guards.
