Forced to Live
Controlled Forced Feeding of Political Prisoners and the Challenge to Nation-States' Civilising Processes
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 5609958 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Stephen Vertigan (0000-0002-0330-7513, Robert Gordon University, corresponding author), Stephen Vertigans (School of Applied Social Studies Robert Gordon University Aberdeen Scotland), John Connolly (0000-0002-8242-0070, DCUBS Dublin City University Dublin Ireland), Paddy Dolan (0000-0002-0086-8382, Department of Social Sciences Technological University Dublin Dublin Ireland) |
| Year | 2025 |
| Volume | 76 |
| Issue | 3 |
| Pages | 578-589 |
| Publication date | 2025-06-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | British Journal of Sociology (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0007-1315 • E-ISSN: 1468-4446 |
| Publisher | Wiley (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1111/1468-4446.13196 |
| PMID | 39930710 |
| OpenAlex | W4407383065 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 45 |
Since the nineteenth century, struggles between state power and political prisoners' right to die have aroused considerable interest. State enforcement to 'make live' through force-feeding also raises important questions concerning processes that inform government approaches, often through methods considered to be brutal, and how these actions fit within perceptions of civilised behaviour. The social scientific focus of hunger strikes tends to be informed by Foucauldian bio-power and governmentality which we draw upon when applying insights from figurational sociology. These insights allow us to better capture shifting social processes and changing public attitudes and behaviours that weaken state control over life and death. Different empirical examples are drawn upon, namely prison based forced feeding programmes that are directed at international 'Islamicists', Irish republicans and British suffragettes. Comparing groups' levels of integration within controlling states' societies, highlight distinctions in power balances, layers of mutual identification and entwined public perceptions and state reactions that help explain the implementation, cessation or continuation of force-feeding
Criminology · Government (linguistics · Governmentality · Imprisonment · Irish · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Power (physics · Prison · Social control · Social science · Sociology · State (computer science · Crime, Deviance, and Social Control · Foucault, Power, and Ethics · Law · Sociology and Norbert Elias
The Sociology of Terrorism
Informalization
Economy and Society
Society must be defended
Civilisation and Informalisation
The State of Exception
The American Civilizing Process
Selections from the Prison Notebooks
A History of Force Feeding
Governing Through Crime
Langage et pouvoir symbolique
Words as well as Deeds
The shifting concept of the self
Body Politics and Boundary Work
The Art of Hunger
Theorizing Self-Destructive Violence
Testing Cruzan
So Much Wasted
Elias on Germany, Nazism and the Holocaust
Space, Time and the Constitution of Subjectivity
Norbert Elias and Modern Sociology
Staging incapacitation
Hunger strike and the force-feeding chair
The prison experiences of the suffragettes in edwardian britain
Culpable Complicity
Gendering the Historiography of the Suffragette Movement in Edwardian Britain
Dirty Protest
The Established and the Outsiders
Theorising political legitimisation
Decivilising Processes
Dyscivilization, Mass Extermination and the State
The barbarism of civilization
British Suffragettes and the Russian Method of Hunger Strike
| Citation velocity | historical |
|---|---|
| Highly cited | No |