Deconstructing the Power Dynamics of Prison Research

• Published date: 01 December 2023
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/00328855231208011
• Author: Melissa Barragan,Dallas Augustine,Gabriela Gonzalez,Keramet Reiter
• Date: 01 December 2023
• Subject Matter: Articles

Deconstructing the

Power Dynamics of

Prison Research

Melissa Barragan

1

, Dallas Augustine

2

,

Gabriela Gonzalez

2

, and Keramet Reiter

3

Abstract

This article examines methodological dilemmas surrounding entrée, emo-

tion, and epistemology that can arise when conducting qualitative research

in carceral settings. We address how our research team navigated consent

and presentations of self for maintaining access; how they managed empathy

and the emotional toll of conducting research in adversarial settings; and

how conf‌licting narratives raised questions about data validity and knowledge

construction. Analysis reveals how institutional power dynamics shape

behind-the-scenes methodological decisions we make during f‌ieldwork.

Without open discussion, researchers risk perpetuating the opacity we

seek to diffuse and replicating the power dynamics we aim to objectively

document within total institutions.

Keywords

qualitative research, ref‌lexivity, access, emotion, epistemology

1

California Polytechnic University, Pomona, CA, USA

2

San Jose State University, San Jose, CA, USA

3

University of California, Irvine, CA, USA

Corresponding Author:

Dallas Augustine, Department of Justice Studies, San Jose State University, MacQuarrie Hall 524,

One Washington Square, San Jose, CA 95192, USA.

Email: dallas.augustine@sjsu.edu

Article

The Prison Journal

2023, Vol. 103(6) 769–790

© 2023 SAGE Publications

Article reuse guidelines:

sagepub.com/journals-permissions

DOI: 10.1177/00328855231208011

journals.sagepub.com/home/tpj

Introduction

Qualitative work examining carceral institutions has increased in the past

decade (Abbott et al., 2018; Baldwin et al., 2021; Beyens et al., 2015;

Drake et al., 2015; Liebling, 2014), along with methodological analyses

exploring techniques for approaching and examining the various challenges

associated with this work (e.g., Drake et al., 2015; Easterling & Johnson,

2015; Gibson-Light & Seim 2020; Gomes & Duarte 2020; Liebling, 2014;

Sloan & Wright, 2015; Watson & Van Der Muelen, 2019). Some of this

research has focused on the emotional toll of qualitative research in prisons

(Liebling, 2014); ethical issues that arise when enlisting populations with

limited control over their daily movements (Easterling & Johnson, 2015);

and problems with gaining access to carceral institutions overall, particularly

when it comes to institutional review board (IRB) processes and building rela-

tionships with institutional gatekeepers (Gibson-Light & Seim, 2020). More

recently, scholars have also considered the role of power dynamics in the

prison research process. Gibson-Light and Seim, for example, argue that

prison ethnography is “punishing f‌ieldwork”that thrusts the researcher into

a series of power struggles with and between prisoners and staff (2020).

Tensions can arise when research takes staff away from their duties; when

researchers are asked (or told) to supervise prisoners while conducting obser-

vations; and when staff interrupt private interviews in the name of security or

time management. Jefferson and Schmidt (2019) similarly argue that prisons

provide a unique space for exploring power dynamics because they reveal

“perhaps the deepest, darkest, most vulnerable aspects of the state…Power

f‌lows in multiple directions; authority is diffused in unpredictable

fashion…legitimacy is continuously contested and coercion is a deliberate

part of the foundation”(p. 160). Thus, it is important that ref‌lexive analyses

of prison research regularly consider how power dynamics between the

researcher and their interlocutors, and between the researcher and the

various spaces their work occupies (i.e., the f‌ield site, the academic disci-

pline), shape the research and their practice.

This article attends to this very issue by centering the role of power in dis-

cussions around prison access (entrée), emotion work throughout the research

process, and knowledge production (epistemology) about prisons and incar-

cerated populations. Drawing upon our shared experience conducting

research in prison systems across the western United States over the course

of 5 years, we argue that prisons not only amplify the already complex rela-

tionships between the researcher and the researched, but also the relationships

between the researcher and their respective academic f‌ield. This amplif‌ication,

in turn, intensif‌ies and magnif‌ies the challenges associated with gaining and

770 The Prison Journal 103(6)