Punishing Fieldwork: Penal Domination and Prison Ethnography

• Published in: Journal of contemporary ethnography Vol. 49; no. 5; pp. 666 - 690
• Main Authors: Gibson-Light, Michael, Seim, Josh
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Los Angeles, CA SAGE Publications 01.10.2020; SAGE PUBLICATIONS, INC
• Subjects: Access; Dominance; Ethnographers; Ethnography; Fatigue; Field study; Fieldwork; Human dignity; Imprisonment; Power; Prisoners; Prisons; Qualitative research; Researcher subject relations; prison research; in-depth interviews; prison; participant observation; ethnography

Ethnographic studies inside prisons are especially difficult to execute. In addition to facing amplified challenges in gaining site access, earning subjects’ trust, and tolerating the exhaustion of fieldwork, researchers who collect participant observation and in-depth interview data behind bars mus...