Penitentiary Pleasures: Queer Understandings of Prison Paradoxes

• In Event: Prison Working Group: Prison perceptions, experiences, and transcendence

Abstract

In this presentation I draw from my previous work on pleasure in prison settings (Vasiliou, 2020) and I argue for the application of queer and decolonial methodologies as a means of deconstructing the binary formation through which pain and pleasure in prison is understood. To do that, I explore how ex-prisoners’ narratives might reveal (queer) moments of pleasure and complement existing criminological scholarship that has neglected such an issue . My starting point is Foucault’s theory of pleasure as a productive force that renders it akin to power: it produces an effect. Furthermore, I draw on Edelman’s concept of “futurity” and Halberstam’s “failure” to bring criminology and queer theory into a productive dialogue. The research is situated in the periphery of Europe and guided by the principle of ‘learning from prisons’ (Vasiliou, 2019) instead of viewing prisoners only as object of interpretation. My presentation posits a question about the possibility and productivity of pleasure in conditions of resisting, failing, and suffering. I argue that this framework goes beyond normative criminological approaches to reveal how prison experience is not only a struggle between power and resistance, but a complex nexus which also involves self-destruction and pleasure.

Author

• Elena Vasiliou, University of Warwick