Censoriousness in a South African prison

• In Event: Experiences of imprisonment

Abstract

Incarcerated people around the world actively engage with penal regimes by accepting, critiquing, and resisting penal power. Asserting this kind of autonomy and control gives meaning to their lives. Much of extant literature on such prisoner agential work originates from research in the Global North. I respond to this imbalance by using ethnographic evidence from a large prison in South Africa to revisit Mathiesen’s concept of censoriousness. I expand the concept to include wider areas in which prisoners appeal to shared normative expectations, the official discourse, and formal rules in their critique of the status quo. Unlike in Mathiesen’s theoretical model, censorious activism in this large South African prison proved largely impotent to produce structural changes. However, its prevalence attests to similar struggles by prisoners across the diverse penal landscapes of the Global North and the Global South to uphold agency and dignity.

Author

• Anton Symkovych, University of Melbourne; University of Johannesburg