Paper short abstract:

Questions regarding the issue of epistemological violence are particularly relevant in ethnographic prison research. The aim of this paper is to provide ethnographic insights into the challenges related to the establishment of trust between researcher and inmates in the strongly hierarchized and stigmatized context of the prison.

Paper long abstract:

Questions regarding the issue of epistemological violence are particularly relevant in ethnographic prison research. Research takes place in a context of multiple power relations that ascribes (opposite) roles, status and positions to individuals in its range (Goffman 1961). Moreover, the prison is a stigmatized place in two respects. First, it accommodates ‘bad people’. Second, it is a ‘bad place’ that leads inmates to experience a wide range of ‘pains of imprisonment’ (Sykes 1958).

By using ethnographic data collected in the context of an on-going PhD-project on indefinite incarceration in Switzerland, this paper will focus on challenges that emerge during the establishment of trust between researcher and prisoners in this hierarchized and stigmatized context. A minimum of trust between researcher and participants is – as in ethnographic fieldwork in general – the basis for a prolonged contact, getting a chance for interaction and the production of knowledge.

The first part will address the organisation of the ethnographic fieldwork by the prison management. At the core will be the prisoners’ relation to their cell as an ambivalent place that provides them with privacy and relief from prison pressure (Toch 1992), but which remains a domain that is highly controlled by the prison system (Foucault 1975). Visiting and talking about the prisoners’ ‘homes’ can serve as a starting point for ‘normalising’ the powerful and stigmatized prison context and the co-construction of trust. By presenting ethnographic accounts on the prisoners’ narratives on privacy, intimacy and individuality, this paper will point to the complexity and dynamics of power between researcher and prisoners.