“Me Time”: (Re)Presenting Self and Carceral Spaces

Abstract

Accounts of prison life consistently indicate a culture of aggression, fear, violence and general mistrust. These accounts also highlight how inmates adapt to prison, which typically occur in the form of men managing emotional ‘fronts’ or putting on ‘masks’ of masculine bravado to deter the aggression of other inmates and hide their vulnerabilities. The aim of this article is not to discount the truth of these descriptions, but to examine how inmates use space to readjust their self presentations and release emotions in order to endure prison life. Qualitative, semi-structured interviews were conducted with ten men who experienced periods of incarceration in Manitoba, Canada. By drawing upon carceral geography, prison sociology, and Goffman’s work on impression management within confined spaces, I supplement the clarion call by researchers for a more detailed and nuanced spatial analysis of prison culture. My findings suggest that these men sought solitary confinement in order to rework their presentations of self. Additionally, solitary confinement became an “island of respite” (Crewe et al., 2014) which allowed these men to let their guards down and temporarily alleviate the constraint upon their behaviour that the presence of other inmates invoked. In effect, the men’s experiences and reflections represent a challenge to depictions of prisons generally and solitary confinement specifically as carceral spaces which are emotionally undifferentiated, unwaveringly aggressive, and free from inmate subversion.