Paper Short Abstract:

This paper explores practices of sharing food of Ghanaian prison officers with juvenile inmates within ambivalent representations of inmates between compassion and distrust. It shows how officers negotiate proximity in hierarchic relations and proposes to view prison as part of the welfare state.

Paper Abstract:

A common theme in public discussions about Prisons in Ghana is prisoners‘ low daily food ration. High ranking Ghanaian officials and prison administration PR strategies often aim to elicit compassion from the public to mobilise donations for the welfare of inmates. While state resources are insufficient to feed prisoners, ethnographic data from a male juvenile prison in Ghana has shown that prison staff provide inmates with additional portions of food. Inmates, who regularly attend vocational training provided by officers in workshops are often given leftover food from prison staff working with them. However, officers‘ practices of care are not in the context of feelings of compassion, rather in conversations with me, prison staff describe inmates as not trustworthy or as „chameleons“.

In this paper I discuss how officers negotiate proximity in hierarchic relations to inmates by analysing forms of commensality in a juvenile prison. My focus is on practices of sharing food of officers: By providing extra food to inmates, prison staff negotiate (1) caring relations to juveniles and (2) re-/ produce hierarchy. Understanding prison staff’s work in terms of care, rather than in terms of dominant discussions of punishment, offers the opportunity to analyse prisons as part of the welfare state. Furthermore, this paper presents an account of African state actors that goes beyond recurring negative stereotypes such as brutality and disregard for human rights, but rather as caring state actors.