Abstract
Based on ethnographic data generated in establishments that house long-term prisoners sentenced to indefinite incarceration in Switzerland, this chapter provides insights into the prisoners’ ways of inhabiting a cell. While cell furnishing and maintenance is highly constrained by the prison’s accommodation regime, it also provides room for manoeuvre. Inspired by Michel Lussault and Mathis Stock’s (2010) ‘pragmatics of space’ approach, this chapter explores the prisoners’ individual ways of (re)arranging spatial elements and shows how they ascribe new meanings and values to the prison cell and create personal and intimate space. At the same time, their ways of inhabiting a cell reflect the prisoners’ different ways of dealing with their life situation that is characterised by a high degree of uncertainty.
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Notes
- 1.
The project End-of-Life in Prison: Legal Context, Institutions and Actors was funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF) (http://www.p3.snf.ch/Project-139296).
- 2.
The PhD project Living the Prison: An Ethnographic Study of Indefinite Incarceration in Switzerland was also funded by the SNSF (http://p3.snf.ch/project-159182).
- 3.
In Switzerland’s federal political system, legislation in the field of criminal law is a matter for the federal government. The execution of sentences, however, generally falls under the responsibilities of the cantons (FOJ 2010).
- 4.
All fieldnotes and quotations from prisoners have been translated from German by the author. All names have been replaced by pseudonyms.
- 5.
See also Herrity (this volume) for a discussion of the significance of sound in cell space.
- 6.
Here it is important to note that the significance prisoners attribute to the cell can change over time and according to the situation (see also Lussault and Stock 2010: 17). For instance, during our first meeting within the scope of a formal interview in 2016, Markus vehemently expressed the position that he would never call his cell a home. In 2017, after several more meetings and informal discussions, during the walking interview I conducted with him, he first showed me his cell, which he named ‘my home’ (Markus 28.8.2017).
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Marti, I. (2020). A ‘Home’ or ‘a Place to Be, But Not to Live’: Arranging the Prison Cell. In: Turner, J., Knight, V. (eds) The Prison Cell. Palgrave Studies in Prisons and Penology. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-39911-5_6
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