Call for paper TerrFerme2013
Defined by a material enclosure and power
relations that oscillate between domination and subversion, constraint by
confinement is exercised in a variety of settings and institutions. It would be
impossible to draw up an exhaustive list of all the places that match this
definition: psychiatric establishments, custodial educational centres, centres
for asylum seekers and refugees, retirement homes, penitentiary establishments,
detention centres for non-nationals awaiting deportation, housing for foreign
labour, etc. Contemporary ways of controlling populations by confinement, at
least in western countries, are marked by a quadruple movement: an opening up
of certain establishments (a notable reduction in the number of beds in
psychiatric hospitals and the concomitant development of sectoral psychiatry);
a multiplication and specialization in the types of establishment and
"custody" (e.g. vis-à-vis migration, mental illness, juvenile
delinquency); a diversification of forms of control through the use of
"alternative" solutions (including electronic tagging or house
arrest); and lastly, the increasing role of private stakeholders in the monitoring
and assistance deployed. These dynamics, which vary in intensity depending on
the institution and the national context, are as much indicative of
across-the-board processes in the different establishments as of the
maintenance of the features and heritages that are specific to each one.
At the same time, the academic literature
concerning these various forms of confinement continues to grow and expand,
nourished by the involvement of a growing number of disciplines. It sometimes
appears to have specialized in an exclusive type of institution: the sociology
of prisons and psychiatry, studies of international migration, the history of
the habitat, worker or social housing. It may also emerge from scientific
traditions that emanate from diverse cultural backgrounds which, as it happens,
have been studied in a very unequal manner. However, some of this research now
suggests that we can develop objects for across-the board study, or even
highlight characteristics that are common to custodial settings: the existence of
power relations between the forces of law and inmates, or the role of
confinement in the production, reproduction and stabilization of categories
intended to organize the forms of deviance that confinement is designed to
control, regulate or curb. The analytical (and geographical) comparison of
custodial institutions seems today to invite questions concerning the way in
which these transversalities are studied, or not, in the available literature
on confinement. The richness of Goffmanian thought has often led social science
research to apprehend confinement in the prism of the "total
institution", and Foucault's work has lastingly transformed and
complicated our comprehension of power relations (particularly in a carceral
context). But we may also wonder to what degree the almost-systematic
mobilization, in confinement research, of these two authors (there being no
question of merging their respective contributions in a single movement) may
possibly have led to a preference for certain angles of approach to the
detriment of others.
This symposium therefore sets out to study the value,
for analysis, of putting different types of custodial space into perspective.
What does this comparison of visions of confinement produce, what awareness
does it develop? What facets of confinement can it highlight that have received
little attention from specialized fields? These questions can be broken down
into several major fields of investigation, an exploration of which would seem
to benefit from the dialogue between researches into the various custodial
institutions.
1 - Space and power relations
Power relations inside establishments that deprive
people of their freedom are one of the central themes of research into
confinement. In line with Goffmanian work on total institutions, many analyses
have concentrated on the power relations between inmates and the
representatives of the institution, running the risk of a dichotomous reading
of the custodial zone opposing, on the one hand, the inmates in a position of "servitude",
"dependence" and "dispossession of self" and, on the other,
members of the personnel monopolizing knowledge, power and freedom. However,
Goffman's interest in "secondary adjustments" facilitates a
complication of the reading of power relations in a custodial milieu by taking
an interest in the techniques through which inmates attempt to circumvent or
refute the roles assigned to them by the institution.
Space, which both sociology and geography view as a
constitutive element of the social sphere, may be a relevant criterion for a
renewed approach to the dynamics of these power relations. Its constructed
dimension is often analysed by the sociology of architecture, which questions
the use of space as an instrument of constraint. It remains to be explored how
space, in its multiple dimensions (perceived, represented, symbolic, lived,
appropriated, presented and instrumentalized), is both a central issue in the
power relations that characterize confinement, and a vector for calling them
into question. In addition, the symposium will question the scales of the
custodial establishment, which is fractioned into multiple levels right down to
and including the objects and bodies of the inmates. What role does space play
in the multiple logics of adjustment to, or circumvention, denial and even
questioning of the institutional authority? One of the objectives will thus be
to explore the interactions between space and power inside custodial
establishments and, more generally, in social relations between inmates, on the
one hand, and between inmates and non-inmates (including representatives of
civil society) on the other.
2 - Control operators and institutions: private vs. public
Custodial institutions have often been apprehended by
existing research as the expression of the sovereign power of the state over
its subjects. A growing number of them now involve private stakeholders. Thus,
European states delegate more and more frequently to private companies the
construction, maintenance and surveillance of penitentiary institutions or
detention centres for non-nationals in an irregular situation. The running of
certain facilities, included in the framework of this symposium, is even more
tightly linked to private providers: this is particularly the case for housing
for migrant workers, which generally belongs to private entrepreneurs (whether
they directly employ the labour or specialize in the construction and
management of workers' housing). Although the sociology of private security has
experienced a real upturn over the last twenty years, this symposium will be an
opportunity to review the public/private dichotomy in order to analyse its
possible repercussions on the power relations that prevail when people are
deprived of their freedom. The question of the form of control
(public/private), and its delegation or outsourcing will also be posed in the
context of previously observed procedures to withdraw state funding. Who
confines, why and for whom? The exercise of constraint on the public in
question and the implementation of confinement may a priori seem more
justified in the framework of establishments whose mission has been defined by
public authorities and which have explicit recourse to forced confinement
(prison, police custody, detention centres, psychiatric hospitals, etc.). But
the existence of places whose operation is not subject to state authority calls
into question the role of the acting power, whether public or private, in the
design and forms of confinement implemented. This calling into question is
particularly important when the confinement facilities are invested with a
state mission to control populations and are increasingly placed in the hands
of third parties (NGOs, associations, national and supranational control
mechanisms, etc.): it is also important to question the impact of this
constellation on forms of support for confined populations, and the dynamics
governing the opening and closing of the institution.
3 - Routes, circulation, mobility
Since the 1960s American prison sociology has
highlighted the necessity of considering custodial establishments in their
relations with the exterior, with their environment. This position, which has
been largely accepted in Francophone research, invites us to view confinement
facilities not so much as "isolates" but as pieces in a social fabric
that extends largely beyond the walls of the institution. One of the major
contributions of recent prison sociology consists in its study of how the
period in prison is worked into the socio-biographical history of prisoners and
how this process influences the experience of confinement, and inversely.
Subsequently, work devoted to the confinement of non-nationals has often
resulted in an extension of this perspective not only to the biographical
history of those detained but also to their spatial mobility. In line with
these attempts to "decarceralize" the focus of analysis, the
contributions proposed here will seek to analyse the effect of mobility on
confinement. They may identify types of mobility linked to confinement, and the
issues underlying them: migration routes and modifications thereof, linked to
periods in custodial facilities, but also mobility linked to everyday life and
the confined person, both inside custodial establishments (trips to the
visiting room, movements to and from refectories, etc.) and outside (trips to
court, to hospital, etc.). It is also important to consider the persons that
move and those that cause them to move. How can the authorities, or the
inmates, make mobility between places, but also inside of places, an instrument
of power and/or knowledge? Can we consider the obligation to move as a new form
of spatial constraint e.g. in cases of forced transfers (from one establishment
to another, one country to another), or certain orders to move about inside the
custodial establishments?
4 - Custodial institutions and inequality
Although different research trends in the social
sciences have recently questioned the relationship between public institutions
and inequality, particularly ethnic and religious inequality, this question
seems to have received little attention in the literature on confinement. A
comparison of different types of custodial facilities offers an opportunity to
question institutional representations of inequality and their possible problematization
by the controlling operators in their daily interactions with inmates. It is
important to examine the hypothesis whereby custodial institutions contribute
to the construction of social relations, whether based on race/ethnicity,
nationality, religion, age or gender. In other words, it is important to
determine the effects of otherness (or of its construction by the authority) on
the institutional methods of control, custody or support deployed inside
custodial establishments, and even on the way inmates resist the processes of
confinement.
5 -
Civil society and confinement: governing facilities, production and the
circulation of knowledge
For several decades, associations and NGOs have played
an essential role in a considerable number of custodial establishments. This
intervention is often part of a dual movement to legitimize the public
authority (the intervention by associations being often presented by custodial
authorities as a sign of transparency and "best practice") while
simultaneously challenging the detention system (e.g. by providing legal aid to
question the legitimacy of detaining non-nationals). This dual register in the
role of associations thus invites us to question the role of civil society in
the governance of custodial centres and particularly in the means of
consolidating it, testing it but also its possible displacement. This
implication of civil society also affects the production and circulation of
critical knowledge concerning confinement. Reports by associations have
sometimes led directly to the deployment of research work e.g. concerning the
living conditions of inmates in custodial institutions, of non-nationals detained
at frontiers or migrant labour confined in camps. These associations produce
not only first-hand information but also form part of a sort of
research-action, fulfilling a critical role as a (counter-) power. Moreover, in
order to gain access to the custodial centres themselves, many researchers use
associations and NGOs, a procedure that places them de facto in a
position of involvement or detachment, to use Norbert Elias's
terminology. This approach will thus aim to question the forms of transition
between the world of associations and research into confinement. What are the
bases of the collaboration between researchers and the world of associations,
particularly at the time of the investigation? Although the links established
are sometimes close and long-lasting, how do their respective aims (production
of knowledge on the one hand and operational procedure on the other) combine?
What consequences do they have for the researchers' apprehension of
confinement, and for the interventions of associative and humanitarian players?
The contributions proposed in response to this call
for papers will thus focus, from an historical and contemporary perspective, on
how a comparison of research on confinement contributes to our understanding of
power relations in custodial environments – especially in terms of the spatial,
circulatory, institutional and diversity management dynamics that drive them. A
preference will be given to papers that provide an empirical approach to these
institutions, and collective contributions that include a comparative dimension
between different types of confinement will be particularly appreciated.
This
symposium closes the TerrFerme research project (Mechanisms of Confinement.
A territorial approach to contemporary political and social control)
financed by the French National Research Agency (Agence Nationale de la
Recherche) and the Conseil Régional d'Aquitaine (http://terrferme.hypotheses.org/). It focuses not only on the
three types of space identified by the team (prisons, detention centres and
housing for migrant labour), but on an ongoing list of custodial institutions.
Sensitive to different study contexts and terrains (authoritarian or democratic
regimes, developed or developing countries), it seeks to promote a dialogue
between disciplines and national traditions of research into confinement.
The working languages of the
symposium will be French and English (translation provided).
For any further information, please write to: colloqueterrferme2013@gmx.fr
