Institutional Consumption: How Prisoners in New York State Accomplish Domestic Material Practices Around and Through Regulations

• In Event: 383 - Section on Consumers and Consumption Roundtables (one-hour)
  In Refereed Roundtable: Table 05. Stratification and Consumption

Abstract

We depart from a general focus of consumption studies on contexts in which actors have substantial discretion, and look instead to consumption practices in restrictive environments. We introduce the term institutional consumption to describe the acquisition, use, exchange, manufacture, and modification of goods in strictly regulated material contexts, such as the workplace, the school and the army, where the regulation of consumption practices is endemic. Our study is focused on the most extreme, ideal-typical U.S. context: the prison, where a mass population is subject to near total regulation in just about every circumstance. Through interviews with former - but recent - prisoners in New York State, we look beyond illicit consumption accomplished against regulation, to the intricate ways that consumption is substantially accomplished through regulations, proscribed objects, and other products and by-products of official practices. We plot these intricate paths through which prisoners achieve grooming and dressing, and the making and sharing of meals. Our contribution demonstrates the specific links between institutional operations and consumption practices which is heretofore missing from the prison literature, and proposes institutional consumption as an area of research focused on the relationship between consumer practices and the opportunity structures through which they are achieved.

Authors

• Noah McClain, Illinois Institute of Technology

• Robert Riggs, New York University