In This Prison We Have Our Main Meal at 11
30 AM'. The Significance of 'Time' For Food Among People Serving Custodial Sentences in England and Wales
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 2392383 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Julie Parsons (0000-0003-4977-4368, University of Plymouth, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2025 |
| Volume | 30 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 3-21 |
| Publication date | 2025-03-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Sociological Research Online (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1360-7804 • E-ISSN: 1360-7804 |
| Publisher | SAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1177/13607804241233033 |
| OpenAlex | W4393344105 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 45 |
In this article, I am thinking through the social life of time for food in prison from a practice theory perspective. I draw upon empirical data from in-depth qualitative interviews with people serving custodial sentences or recently released from prison in England and Wales who have been on placement at a prisoner resettlement charity (RC). These support findings from Her Majesty's Inspectorate for Prisons report on Life Inside: Food from 2016, and I consider two aspects from the report, (i) an exploration of the standards and conditions in which food is consumed and (ii) the timings of mealtimes. For people in prison, disruptions to the usual rhythms of everyday life, or chrono-normative expectations, serve as stark reminders of a lack of agency and worth. People in prison are forced to adapt and work within temporal spaces that are subject to flux due to the systemic demands of an under-resourced prison system. These constitute a contravention of social and cultural norms and reinforce the notion of the prison as a place of punishment, and degradation. These temporal shifts contribute to the transformation of civilian to prisoner and form part of a process of de-synchronising with life outside
Criminology · Meal · Media studies · Prison · Sociology · Criminal Justice and Corrections Analysis · Food Security and Health in Diverse Populations · Homelessness and Social Issues · Food Science
Culinary Capital
Consumption, Food and Taste
Making good
Food, Morals and Meaning
Handbook of theory and research for the sociology of education
Distinction
Modernity and self-identity
Introduction to March’s Theme
Biographical Research
Sociology on the Menu
Slow Violence and the Environmentalism of the Poor
Penal subjectivities
Making time for food when ‘doing time’; how enhanced status prisoners counter the indignity of prison foodways
Community-Based Participatory Research Contributions to Intervention Research
The Society of Captives
In the Meantime
Using thematic analysis in psychology
The sociological imagination
Bourdieu and the bomb
The changing practice of eating
Network Time and the New Knowledge Epoch
The Child in the Broom Closet
The social life of time and methods
No time to waste - How the social practices of temporal organisation change in the transition from work to retirement
Introduction
An Invitation of Reflexive Sociology
When convenience is inconvenient
The BSA and the Emergence of a 'Sociology of Food
Saints and Slackers
No Appetite for Change
Gender As a Social Structure
Changes in the Practice of Eating
The Language of Time
The "Gentle and Invisible" Violence of Obesity Prevention
Slow Death (Sovereignty, Obesity, Lateral Agency)
| Citation velocity | historical |
|---|---|
| Highly cited | No |