Whitening Black Men

Narrative Labour and the Scriptural Economics of Risk and Rehabilitation

Datos Bibliográficos

ID8400920
AutoresJason Warr (0000-0003-2688-6762, University of Nottingham, autor de correspondencia)
Año2023
Volumen63
Número5
Páginas1091-1107
Fecha de publicación2023-08-17
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessSí
TipoARTICLE
RevistaThe British Journal of Criminology (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 0007-0955 • E-ISSN: 1464-3529
EditorialOxford University Press (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1093/bjc/azac066
OpenAlexW4294770352
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas9
Referencias citadas51

‘You know what? You can’t be a “Black Man” in prison.’ Negative impositions of Blackness, grounded in the myths of Black Criminality, shape assessments of risk and rehabilitation within the scriptural economy of the contemporary prison. This creates a rehabilitative colour line that results in specific forms of narrative labour, whereby prisoners attempt to control the recording and interpretation of their Black identities. From Social Relations, to Appearance, to Language Use, more of the life of a Black prisoner is interpreted negatively than other prisoners. This paper explores how Black lifers, are forced to adopt narrative labours that ‘whiten’ their ‘Blackness’ in order to mitigate their perceived risk and navigate the prison’s pathways to release. This article is based on quasi-ethnographic fieldwork conducted in two prison sites between 2011 and 2014 in which more than 120 indeterminately sentenced prisoners were consulted

Art · Criminology · Ethnography · Interpretation (philosophy) · Linguistics · Literature · Mythology · Narrative · Prison · Sociology · Anthropology · Criminal Justice and Corrections Analysis · Gender Studies · Homelessness and Social Issues · Migration, Refugees, and Integration · Psychology · Rehabilitation