Understanding the Carceral Experience and the “Carceral Imaginary” in a Lockdown Situation: An Exploratory Study of Social Representations of Prison during a Health Crisis

Abstract

Since the beginning of 2020, we have witnessed the development of a global pandemic with the sudden and worldwide spread of a new virus: COVID-19. By mid-2020, many governments across all continents had decided to impose a total lockdown on their populations to contain its propagation, limiting freedom of movement and social interactions. For people imprisoned in French carceral settings, this health crisis led to their subjection to more restrictive measures. In this paper, we argue that a sense of identification between being in lockdown and being in prison arose from this peculiar situation, and from the feeling of shared experience it created. Drawing from the French lockdown experience, this article analyses it through the concept of “carceral,” in order to understand the subjective mechanisms that it underpins and grasp the social representations shaping a “carceral imaginary” (Fludernik, 2005). Conceptualizing the lockdown situation among the broader population then allows us to examine this “carceral imaginary” through individuals’ representations relating to prison within this special experiential context, through an analysis of comments made on an online social network. Overall, this paper suggests that social representations and feelings relating to prison seem to have been rekindled through what we consider as an “involving” context, resulting from the current health crisis. However, it shows that above all, this shared experience perpetuates the traditional differentiation between common “lockdowners” and imprisoned people, who have to endure the “carceral reality” through an everyday constraining experience of confinement.