Punctuated Masculinities in a Ukrainian Prison

• In Event: Prison Adjustment and Social Order

Abstract

This paper examines the constructions and presentations of masculinities in a medium-security, men’s prison in Ukraine. Based on an ethnographic study, it discusses the paradoxical disjunction between observed behaviour and the dominant, unofficial ‘inmate code’ (ponyatiya in Russian) which promoted loyalty and masculinity. Corroborating classical studies in the West (inter alia, Crewe 2009; Sykes, 1958; Clemmer, 1940), I found that whilst masculine discourse was central to prison life, for both prisoners and staff (cf. Robinson, 2011), its translation into daily practices was selective. Patriarchal gender division and homophobia in society-at-large were reflected in the prisoners’ informal pecking order. I argue that despite positioning itself as an alternative to the unjust and arbitrary State, the prisoners’ informal, hierarchical society institutionalised the inequality of the different categories of people under its auspices. It promoted masculinity in general together with such values as personal dignity, loyalty and honesty in particular. Yet, these virtues were mandatory only in exchanges with ‘your own kind’, i.e. with people from the same level in the criminal hierarchy.

Author

• Anton Symkovych, University of Edinburgh / National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy