Queering Prison Research: From Identity to Intimacy

• In Event: Roundtable: Strange bedfellows or long-lost lovers? Queer Theory and Critical Criminology

Abstract

Drawing on empirical research conducted in prison, this presentation will examine the potential contribution of queer theory and critical criminology to explore the construction of LGBT individuals as a vulnerable minority and to think more widely about questions of same-sex and queer sex, desire and intimacy within an enforced single-sex or homosocial environment. It will highlight how exploring the prison from a queer perspective, that is to say one in which the politics of identity are de-centred, helps to illuminate the extent to which sex, intimacy and the manner in which these are governed are integral to a more nuanced understanding of the function of the prison and the pains of imprisonment.

Authors

• Nicola Carr, University of Nottingham

• Tanya Serisier, Birkbeck, University of London