Subjectification in Philippine Jails

Subjectification in Philippine Jails
- How inmates cope with the objectifying power of
confinement
A master's thesis by: Liv Stoltze Gaborit
September 2013
Institute of Psychology, University of Copenhagen
Supervisor: Morten Nissen
Characters: 191878
Co-supervisor: Andrew M. Jefferson
Pages: 80
ii
Content
Acknowledgements ............................................................. vi
Abstract ............................................................................... vii
Acronyms ........................................................................... viii
Local and Prison Jargon ..................................................... ix
PART I
INTRODUCTION
1. Problem Statement ........................................................... 2
1.1 A Practice Research Project ........................................... 3
1.2 Theoretical Key Concepts .............................................. 4
1.3 Outline of the Thesis ...................................................... 5
2. Context .............................................................................. 6
2.1 Historical Background .................................................... 6
2.1.1 The Muslims ............................................................ 6
2.1.2 The Leftists .............................................................. 7
2.1.3 Balay........................................................................ 8
2.2 A Walk through the Jail .................................................. 9
PART II
PRACTICE RESEARCH ABOUT SUBJECTIFICATION
3. Methodology ................................................................... 14
3.1 Course of Fieldwork ..................................................... 14
3.2 Practice Research ........................................................ 16
3.2.1 Practice Research in Jail........................................ 17
3.3 Prison Ethnography ...................................................... 19
3.4 Researcher Positions ................................................... 21
3.4.1 Intern at Balay........................................................ 21
3.4.2 Researcher in the Jails........................................... 22
3.4.3 Positions of Power ................................................. 24
3.4.4 A Woman in Male Jails........................................... 25
iii
3.4.5 Working with Leftists and Muslims ......................... 26
3.4.6 Coping with the Jail Context .................................. 27
3.5 Limitations ................................................................... 29
3.5.1 Practical Limitations: Time and Distance ............... 29
3.5.2 Selection Bias ....................................................... 30
3.5.3 Psychological Limitations ...................................... 31
4. Analytical Framework .................................................... 32
4.1 Critical Psychology: A Subject Science ........................ 33
4.1.1 Participating in Action Contexts ............................. 35
4.1.2 Agency .................................................................. 36
4.1.3 Subjectification as Interpellation ............................ 39
4.2 Foucault: Subjectification as Objectification ................. 40
4.2.1 Scientific Knowledge of the Subject ....................... 41
4.2.2 Dividing Practices in Disciplinary Power ................ 42
4.2.3 Techniques of the Self ........................................... 43
4.3 Subjectification - Objectification - Power ...................... 45
PART III
SUBJECTIFICATION IN PHILIPPINE JAILS
5. Analysis .......................................................................... 50
5.1. Life inside the Jail ....................................................... 50
5.1.1 Groups in the Jail .................................................. 51
5.1.2 Relations between Groups: The Complaint ........... 58
5.1.3 Rights and Privileges ............................................. 61
5.1.4 Being Busy Doing Nothing ..................................... 67
5.2 Relations to the Outside............................................... 73
5.2.1 Jail Management: Dynamic Security...................... 74
5.2.2 Subjectification in the Relation with Balay.............. 77
5.3 Subjectification in Jail................................................... 83
PART IV
CONFINEMENT AND SUBJECTIFICATION
6. Conclusion...................................................................... 88
Confinement and Subjectification ................................... 91
References.......................................................................... 94
Appendices ....................................................................... 100
Appendix 1: Example of an Interview Guide .................... 100
Appendix 2: List of Jail Visits and Data ............................ 102
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Appendix 3: Sample of Field Notes .................................. 104
Appendix 4: Description of the UPR Project ..................... 109
Appendix 5: Jacob Pedersen's Researcher Positions ....... 118
v
Acknowledgements
I am truly thankful to all the people who made the fieldwork for this
thesis possible. I have been most honoured by the engagement of the
inmates who shared their personal stories and showed me their world
inside the jail.
I am thankful to Balay Rehabilitation Centre, who not only took me in as
an intern and showed me life in the Philippines, but who also helped me
enter the jails that have given me so many touching experiences. I am
also thankful to the correctional services in the Philippines, who allowed
me not only to follow the work of Balay, but even to enter jails without
Balay. A special thank goes to the wardens who engaged in the study and
in discussions about the life of inmates and jails in the Philippines.
Thanks to DIGNITY - Danish Institute Against Torture, for providing
me a working space, and to the members of the research department for
their support. Especially to Andrew M. Jefferson who have been my
mentor and co-supervisor through this process and who have guided
and encouraged me as I took my first steps into the world of prison ethnography.
Thanks to my supervisor Morten Nissen for supporting me throughout
this project, even when I challenged the boundaries of a normal thesis in
psychology.
Special thanks goes to Jacob Pedersen, my faithful research partner,
with whom most challenges and successes of this thesis have been
shared and without whom this fieldwork would not have taken place.
Thanks also to the friends that assisted me with editing and layout, to
Mette Nielsen, Anne Marie Bejerholm Svendsen, Heidi Schrøder and
Camilla Lee Christensen.
vi
Abstract
In the Philippines thousands of remand prisoners await a verdict inside
jails. The average waiting time is several years and due to prolonged
trials some people wait for more than a decade. During this period of
confinement they are faced with the objectifying disciplinary power of
the jail.
Building on six months’ work in Philippine jails and six weeks of fieldwork this thesis seeks to explore how inmates cope with the objectification they face during prolonged periods of confinement. Through the
use of an analytical framework drawing on Critical Psychology and Foucault, it is shown how inmates create subjectification by uniting in
groups as alternative to the objectification the jail faces them with. Further, it is shown how a strong degree of unity within the groups, enables
them to create agency within the jail, even though extreme restrictions
prevent them from extending action possibilities.
The findings of this study speak to the philosophical question of the
degree of freedom men have to unfold their agency and points to the jail
as a space suited for new inquiries on this question. Through the strong
restrictions posed by disciplinary power in the jail humans are challenged to live a life with little freedom. To get closer to an understanding
of how people maintain a sense of agency and humanness under conditions of confinement can offer new insight to the nexus between freedom and restrictions in human practices in other contexts as well.
vii
Acronyms
BJMP
Bureau of Jail Management and Penology.
CPP
Communist Party of the Philippines.
ICRC
International Committee of Red Cross.
IWD
Office of Inmates Welfare and Development under the
BJMP.
JP
Jacob Pedersen (research partner).
MAG
Medical Action Group (NGO, offering medical support).
MILF
Moro Islamic Liberation Front.
MNLF
Moro National Liberation Front.
NDF
National Democratic Front (legal and political division of
CPP).
NPA
New Peoples' Army (military subdivision of CPP).
STOV
Survivor of Torture and Organized Violence, the team at
Balay responsible for work in jails and prisons, also called
prison team.
UPR
Understanding Prison Reform (research project, see appendix 4).
viii
Local and Prison Jargon
Karapatan
NGO that offers legal support to political inmates,
especially the leftists. Full name: KARAPATAN: Alliance
for the Advancement of People's Rights.
Sunning
The time inmates are allowed to be outside. In the jail
where the term was used in this study sunning happens
on the roof of the jail building. Due to flight and security
risk inmates are only allowed on the roof for limited time
and only one wing at a time.
Trustee
A trustee is an inmate who works for the guards.
Ustadz
Authority among the Muslims who performs counselling
and teachings in the Quran.
ix
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Part I
Introduction
1. Problem Statement
Within the field of penology confinement can be understood as a disciplinary tool for people who deviate from the norm of what society has
defined as legal. This tool entails strong objectification of inmates, ideally used in the process of rehabilitation but in practice also at stake in
periods where they are waiting for verdict.
The issue of subjectification within the objectifying conditions of confinement is of grave importance of several reasons. Firstly, the scope of
the problem increases as the inmate population is growing worldwide,
especially in countries in the south (Walmsley 2009). This study is concerned with jails in the Philippines, where the population of remand
prisoners is steadily increasing; currently it has reached a level of
108305 inmates (ICPS 2012). The increase in cases has led to an overburdened justice system and delays. Thus, in 2005 inmates spent an
average of 3,2 years waiting for verdict after which 82% of the cases
were dismissed (Narag 2005, xvi).
Secondly, the jail as a space of confinement offers a particularly interesting place to explore subjectification. According to Jefferson it is particularly interesting to study subjectification in places of confinement because of the social power at stake:
Confining institutions can be understood as sites where social
power is a central dynamic and where practices of power
and knowledge, discipline and resistance, control and care
are key features. (2012, 2)
In this study this was mirrored by inmates who talked about politics of
the jail as something one could not avoid; confinement forced them to
participate in the power relations at stake. This makes the jail a particular interesting place to study the power involved in subjectification.
2
This study explores how inmates are affected by the objectifying power
of the jail and how they resist the objectification and find strategies to
maintain their subjectivity by fighting for agency.1 That is, how they
maintain their humanness under extreme objectifying conditions. This
will be explored in the context of Philippine jails through the following
research questions:
1. How are inmates objectified and subjectified within
Philippine jails?
2. How do inmates cope with the intense restrictions on
their agency set up by the jail?
A better understanding of ways in which inmates create agency, leading
them to increased wellbeing, can help to create more humane conditions
within the jails, especially for inmates awaiting verdict. Further, this
knowledge has the potential to create jails with better possibilities to
maintain agency and subjectivity within the jail. On a general level, understanding how inmates manage to maintain agency within restrictive
and objectifying conditions of confinement can contribute to a better
understanding of the effect objectification has on agency in general.
1.1 A Practice Research Project
This study has been conducted in collaboration with Balay Rehabilitation Centre (Balay) as practice research (Nissen 2000; Jefferson and
Huniche 2009). Balay is a rehabilitation centre for torture survivors,
and also extend their work to prevention of torture and human rights
protection. This study explores their work with political detainees inside
the jails, which is part of an effort to help torture survivors (Balay 2011).
I established a relation to the organisation during an internship with
Balay in 2012.
The fieldwork was conducted within a six weeks period where I followed
Balay’s work in the jails and conducted four jail visits without Balay,
accompanied by Jacob Pedersen (JP).2 During visits with Balay I conducted participant observations, where I positioned myself in a role
Agency is understood through the definition within Critical Psychology, which
are presented and elaborated in section 4.1. When quotes refer to action potency, this should be understood as synonymous with agency.
2 Jacob Pedersen was a fellow intern at Balay and is now also working on a thesis
building on this fieldwork.
1
3
similar to the one I had when doing jail visits as intern. At visits without
Balay JP and I made semi-structured interviews with inmates we had
interacted with during previous visits (Kvale 2009).3 The chosen inmates were all people I had established a relation with before and this
led them to trust me with stories full of personal and sensitive details.
The combination of participant observation and semi-structured interviews was chosen to immerse as much as possible in the field, during a
short research period, and to get a combination of knowledge about how
people act and how they speak about jail life.
During the fieldwork I collected eleven sets of field notes and four interviews.4 This data has been supplemented by data from the research project Understanding Prison Reform (UPR).5 UPR follows methods similar
to this study and has contributed with field notes produced by Balay's
staff, interviews and focus groups discussions with inmates who also
participated in present study.
1.2 Theoretical Key Concepts
The data has been subjected to an analytical framework drawing on
German and Scandinavian Critical Psychology (Dreier 2003; Holzkamp
1985; Nissen 2002) and Foucault’s work on subjectification as objectification (1982; 1988). In the analytical framework subjectification, objectification and agency are key analytical concepts. These three concepts
are defined in the following manner:
Subjectification: Describes the process through which an
individual is offered a certain category through objectification and then steps into the category, making it his own.
When he has merged the category with his particular personal characteristics, he has been subjectified.
Objectification: The imposition of a role on a subject,
where the subject has not taken on or accepted the role and
made it his own. This process is part of subjectification
process, but if not followed by the subject's active engagement in the role, it remains objectification.
For an example of an interview guide see App. 1
For full list of data see App. 2, for a sample of field notes see App. 3
5 For a description of the project see App. 4
3
4
4
Agency: The key difference between objects and subjects,
which describes their ability to choose between different
possible ways to act.
1.3 Outline of the Thesis
Part 1 continues with a presentation of the context of the study. It describes the Philippines, Balay and the jails the data have been collected
in.
Part 2 introduces methods and theory of the study. Chapter 3 describes
the methods used for data collection, the epistemology that lays the
foundation for the analysis and methodological considerations related to
the study. Chapter 4 presents analytical framework drawing on relevant
concepts from Critical Psychology and Foucault's work.
In part 3 the theoretical framework and the methodological understandings merge as the analytical framework is applied to data and findings
are discussed.
Finally, part 4 presents the conclusions of the study and their implications for further studies on subjectification in confinement.
5
2. Context
To get a better sense of the data and analysis to come, this section
shortly introduces the context of the study. It begins with a general introduction to Philippine history, continues with an introduction to the
political background of the Muslim and leftist groups that will be in
focus and an introduction to Balay. Finally, the jail in which most of the
study was conducted will be described to get a sense of the atmosphere
of the context.
2.1 Historical Background
Politically, foreign influences have set their mark on Philippine history.
It took approximately 300 years of Spanish colonial rule, 40 years of
American rule and Japanese occupation during Second World War,
before the Philippines finally gained independence, only to end up in the
hands of President Marcos, who declared Martial Law in 1972. In 1986
the people overthrew Marcos' regime through the EDSA revolution and
since then the country has been formally democratic, though paramilitary groups and corruption are still part of the political system. Due to
the many different influences Philippine culture ended as a peculiar
mixture of the native culture and foreign influences, exemplified by a
political system similar to the American, and a Catholic Church which,
though the state is formally secular, has a strong influence (Hedman and
Sidel 2000).
This history of oppression by foreign powers or native dictator gave
birth to many opposition groups. Let us now turn to the two opposition
groups among political detainees that participated in this study and to
how Balay was created as a response to the human rights violations
caused by the oppression.
2.1.1 The Muslims
The region Mindanao in southern Philippines has set the scene for a
long lasting fight for independence. While changing Philippine govern-
6
ments have fought to keep Mindanao part of the Philippines, various
Muslim groups have fought for different levels of independence. Currently peace negotiations between the government and Moro Islamic
Liberation Front (MILF) are ongoing (Rodil 2008).
For this study it is important to know about at least two of the Muslim
groups: MILF and Abu Sayyaf.
A lot of the legal cases of the Muslim inmates include accusations for
terror actions performed by Abu Sayyaf. This group fights not only for
independence of the Muslim area, but for a Muslim theocracy. It is condemned for its use of militant methods against civilians by both the Philippine government, Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) and MILF
(Sidel 2008). The participants of this study all denied being members of
Abu Sayyaf.
A group which the Muslim inmates admitted affiliation with, and with
whom the legal accusations of their cases were not concerned, was the
MILF. MILF is also a Muslim independence group, but does not have
the same reputation for affiliation with terror actions as the Abu Sayyaf.
It was founded in 1984 after breaking away from MNLF in 1977, due to
disagreement about the peace negotiations with the Philippine government (Hedman and Sidel 2000). When participants of this study admit
to affiliation with MILF they thus admit to support the fight for an independent Muslim area which recognises the importance of democratic
processes. That is, a secular Muslim state similar to how the rest of the
Philippines can be seen as a secular catholic state (Sidel 2008).
2.1.2 The Leftists
There are many different leftist groups in the jails. Some are fighting for
particular cases, like land-reform or anti-imperialism, while others have
taken on a general revolutionary struggle.
Among the participants in this study, most leftists were affiliated with
the Communist Party of the Philippines. This party was founded in 1968
and consist of the National Democratic Front (NDF) which leads the
political and legal struggle for the communist revolution, and the National People's Army (NPA) which leads the armed struggle (Guerrero
1979).
7
In 1992 there was a split in the communist party because of disagreement about the form of a revolution. Should the revolutionist strategy be
changed now that the country had established a political system of its
own? Or should a revolution still originate from the farmers in the provinces? This led to the split in a party, where the party continued as reaffirmist, who reaffirmed their allegiance to the principles of the party and
to a Maoist Marxism, while other groups, called the rejectionists, broke
away from the party and continued to fight for the revolution, but followed a more Leninist line of Marxism (Malay 2010). The participants
from the high security jail are reaffirmists, while the participants from
the provincial jail are rejectionists.
When using the term leftist in this thesis, it does not define what exact
political group inmates are part of, but define a broader category of political detainees accused of leftist beliefs or actions. In the jails I worked
in it was these beliefs that made leftists define themselves as a group,
and it is therefore used as a criteria here. This criterion marks their general difference from the gangs or Muslims, but not the subdivisions and
sub-criteria that could also be followed.
2.1.3 Balay
The inmates who participated in this study not only belonged to either of
the above groups, they were also Balay's clients. Balay is an NGO
founded in 1986 as a reaction to the massive human rights violations
faced by the population during the martial law era. From the very start
Balay focused on supporting people who fought for their rights and protection against the state. Due to high numbers of disappeared persons
and political prisoners during the Marcos regime, political prisoners
were a natural place for Balay to focus their work. When democracy was
installed, torture rates remained high, and Balay therefore continued to
work with political prisoners who had been subjected to torture. After
the Marcos era Balay extended their services to internally displaced persons in Mindanao and youth at risk of torture in the poor area of Bagong
Silang (Jensen, Hapal, and Modvig 2013; Balay 2011).
During the fieldwork I followed Balay's work in the jails which is part of
their Psychosocial Development Program for Survivors of Torture and
Organized Violence. This programme offers political detainees psychosocial support in many forms, such as counselling, livelihood activities,
medical assistance, family support, etc. (Balay 2011).
8
2.2 A Walk through the Jail
To grasp the context this data stem from, we need an idea about the
atmosphere within the jails. This section introduces the jail in which
most of the research was done: a high security facility housing around
425 remand inmates assessed to be high risk.
When entering the jail, you first meet the guards at the gate. The gate for
visitors is only the size of a normal door. It is made out of metal, and
when you knock on the door, a guard slides a small cover to the side,
revealing a slot he can look through to check who you are. When we
present ourselves as Balay the door is opened and we can enter. When
other visitors present themselves, they have to hand in their ID card, get
a number and wait outside. As you enter the gate, you find yourself in a
small area, on one side there is a counter and a window, on the other an
iron mesh and a closed door. You enter a code and your fingerprint is
scanned for identification, you hand in your ID card and phone and are
then allowed to enter the next area.
You are let through the second gate, to enter the area where persons and
things that go inside the jail are searched. After a search, more or less
thorough, depending on the guard on shift, you are allowed to enter. You
then walk down a path, pass the infirmary and get to the jail building. To
enter you have to pass through another metal gate, this one is heavier,
with iron bars instead of mesh and electronically operated by the
guards. As you enter the gate you are in a small area in front of the
building, here sits a group of guards and trustees. There is a particular
sweet rotten smell here, sending its fumes into the jail building. It is
caused by the garbage area in front of the jail.
If you want to get in or out of the jail, you have to get the attention of
these guards, which is easy at entrance, but can be hard if you are at the
fourth floor wanting to get down. If you are going to the ground floor of
the jail, you walk through a zigzag pathway of bars to get into a common
area between the cells on the lower level. An alternative way in is to go
up the stairs in between the wings and stop on the floor you want to
visit. Balay normally go to an empty cell which is used for visitors and
IWD activities. The cell serves many purposes, and when you arrive, it
often has to be refurnished to accommodate your needs. The inmates
hanging out in front of the cell will make sure that the chairs and tables
you need are brought to you, without even asking. Balay staff sometimes
continues up to the fourth floor to talk to clients up there, because it is
9
easier for Balay to be allowed to enter, than for inmates to be allowed to
come down.
The cells are approximately three by four meters and house two to six
inmates, depending on which area they are in. Among Muslims it seems
to be normal to be around three to four inmates in each cell, among the
gangs6 only two inmates per cell and the leftists I interviewed lived six
inmates in one cell, which is furnished with bunk beds in three levels.
Toilet and water is at the back of the cell, where the inmates get water to
flush, shower and cook. Water is only turned on for two hours twice a
day, where the inmates fill up barrels of water as supply for the rest of
the day. Conditions vary a lot between cells. The poor inmates have very
basic cells, where they sleep on thin mattresses on the floor. The inmates
who can afford to invest in their cell have installed beds, have more fans
and have even built better toilets.
The Muslim inmates share a common area on the ground floor, which is
used for praying and for exercise every morning. The rest of the jail only
has access to their cell and the hallway in front of it. In the morning you
can see people exercising here, running back and forth in the hallway.
The inmates can also exercise at the rooftop, where they supposedly
have access to sunning once a day. However not all inmates I spoke to
had daily access to the roof.
The gangs are not analysed within present study because the clients of Balay in
this jail are not affiliated with gangs. They will be included to gain knowledge
about dynamics between the groups of Muslims and leftist. For a description of
gangs in Philippine jails see Narag (2005)
6
10
11
12
Part II
Practice Research
about Subjectification
3. Methodology
This chapter presents how the research was conducted and which special precautions were taken because it was conducted within jails. Further it describes the underlying epistemology of the study and its consequences for the analytical approach. In this section the preliminary analytical steps are taken by presenting my researcher position and reflecting upon my subjective perspective,7 as this is an important part of the
epistemological understanding of Critical Psychology (Nissen 2000).
3.1 Course of Fieldwork
The first steps towards writing this thesis were taken in the autumn of
2012, when I was an intern at Balay. After discussions about the topic of
my thesis, I made an agreement with a supervisor, co-supervisor and the
director of Balay for collaboration.
As I returned to Denmark I continued to study the topic and develop
research questions. My interests closed in on some of the extremist
groups and their connections and separations from clients of Balay.
Meanwhile, I started to plan the course of my fieldwork, together with
JP. However, when I contacted Balay and told them I wanted to write
about extremist groups, they did not support the direction I proposed
for the study, since this topic did not respond with a development the
organisation wanted to participate in; though it might be interesting to
look at separations and connections between the extremist and nonextremists living in the same jail, this topic does not correspond with
Balay’s goal of helping torture survivors and working for human rights.
If I wanted to collaborate with Balay, I had to change my focus. Therefore, I changed my focus to subjectification in the relation between Balay
In the analysis the researcher’s perspective refers to my perspective. The perspective of JP will be included when necessary. This way of including the subjective perspective has been chosen because the analysis is based on my field notes.
App. 5 gives a short introduction to further relevant reflections if writing from
JP’s perspective.
7
14
and their clients, instead of the relation between extremist groups and
the clients of Balay. The new focus of my study was further developed as
I discussed it with Balay’s staff and clients. I learned, that there were
other significant relations at stake for the inmates, and limiting my focus
to the relation to Balay, would limit the level of understanding that
could be reached. It was necessary to make room for the broader context
to understand the world of the inmates. Therefore the relation between
Balay and clients is only a minor part of present thesis, while other relations the inmates participate in have gained priority.
The fieldwork was conducted within a period of six weeks. During the
fieldwork I followed the work of the STOV team, who are in charge of
the work Balay conduct within jails and prisons. 8 They conduct jail visits
where they deliver mental, legal and material support to clients. The
STOV team use a lot of their time in the office of Balay, planning and
evaluating the service delivery, and conduct regular prison and jail visits. The jails are divided into focus jails and outreach jails. Balay have a
lot of clients in the focus jails and here they visit a couple of times a
month, while outreach jails are often far away from Balays office, only
have few clients, and are only visited once a year (Balay 2011). This
study was mainly conducted in focus jails. Whenever there was a visit to
a focus jail I therefore joined the staff and when there were no visits for
the day, I stayed in the office of the STOV team. During my stay, the
STOV team focused a lot on their visits to outreach jails, which meant a
lot of the time, people from the team where travelling to other regions of
the country. During a two week period the whole STOV team left for
other regions, while I stayed in Manila and conducted jail visits without
Balay. In this period JP and I conducted four jail visits in one focus jail.
We chose to focus on one jail, rather than having only one visit in many
different jails, to get a deeper understanding of the everyday life in this
jail. This decision was taken on the grounds of the experience that life
inside jails in the Philippines differ a lot, and it would be hard to get an
grasp these differences if only conducting one visit to each jail.
I participated in six jail visits with Balay in one prison and three jails.9
During these visits I followed the work of Balay and kept in the backJails house remand inmates waiting for verdict, while prisons house prisoners
serving a sentence.
9 Occasionally experiences from my internship with Balay will be included as
data. During my internship I visited eleven jails. During the internship I kept
short journals of jail visits, describing the activities of the visit, but not detailed
field notes.
8
15
ground, though when inmates approached me or Balay staff encouraged
me to engage in conversation, I did so. During the four jail visits with JP,
we conducted semi-structured interviews. An interview guide was made
before every interview, with questions based on our experiences with the
inmates during previous visits (Kvale 2009). We interviewed four clients
of Balay in the high security jail; two who lived in the Muslim area and
two from the leftist area. Further, we interviewed one inmate who had
no relation to Balay, but who was our interpreter. His perspective was
included to get an understanding of the position he interpreted from
and to hear the reflections of an inmate who was neither Muslim nor
leftist.10
During all visits I wrote field notes, while the interviews were recorded
in audio. Beyond the research in jails, research was also conducted at
the office of Balay. During the days in the office, I mainly worked on my
field notes, but also took part in discussions about Balay’s work. Whenever a discussion seemed of interest to my thesis, I wrote a short passage
about it in field notes. Further, we had four structured discussion sessions with the STOV team, where we discussed the themes of the research and incidents from jail visits.
After I left Balay, discussions have been continued via email, to include
reflections from Balay’s staff in the writing process. After the thesis is
handed in, it will be send to Balay and to the warden of the high security
jail.
3.2 Practice Research
The study was conducted as a practice research project in cooperation
with Balay, and therefore is still being conducted. By including Balay in
the process and sharing my reflections with them, I hope that the findings of present thesis will have a strong connection to the practices of
Balay and can fuel further discussions in the organisation.
Balay was an attractive organisation to enter this partnership with, since
they have a tradition for reflective work and are already participating in
practice research through their engagement in the UPR project. Nissen
describes the attractive partners for practice research as:
10
Our interpreter was member of the gang Batang City Jail.
16
the kinds of researchers that are most likely to be interesting
partners, are those who build on some epistemology of practice... the interesting practitioners are those who pursue a
concern for reflection and development. (Nissen 2000, 171)
Thus, the collaboration was made interesting to Balay, because I had
spent four months as their intern, thereby establishing an understanding of the organisation and their epistemology.
Critical Psychological practice research does not prescribe a specific set
of methods; it is an approach to the field. Since this approach entails the
adaptation of research methods to the practice in the field, general rules
for which methods are suitable cannot be created. In some cases one
method may be best to explore practices, while in other cases other
methods will be necessary. In this study, quasi-ethnographic methods
were chosen for the studies within the jails, while the collaboration with
Balay entailed constant negotiation of the direction of the study in the
form of discussion sessions with the STOV team. These methods were
chosen with inspiration from other studies within the tradition of Critical Psychological practice research (Jefferson 2004; Khawaja and Mørck
2009; Nissen 2012).
What is implied when stating that this is practice research is an approach to the field and to knowledge. The approach emphasises the importance of the collaboration between researcher and practice, and research as a dialogical process.
Practice research, viewed as a situated practice, is ideally the
joint venture of two distinct situated practices. It should be
reduced neither to a research methodology nor to a means of
strategic development practice. (Nissen 2000, 170)
Thus, both the objectives of researcher and Balay should be considered.
This was sought through the negotiation process before and discussions
during the fieldwork (cf. 3.1).
3.2.1 Practice Research in Jail
There are some ethical and methodological issues which need special
consideration when researching in jails or prisons (Fine 2006, 253).
Epistemology and ethics intertwine, because there is a lot of unspeakable knowledge. Some things are silenced by inmates thereby hindering
the knowledge from even reaching us. Others are left out of this thesis,
17
due to ethical concerns for the research participants. Practice research is
inherently aimed at creating development and change, therefore the
method can have consequences for the participants (Nissen 2009a;
2000). As researcher, I cannot necessarily foresee the effects of these
changes. And because this research has been conducted in jails, there is
a risk that severe consequences could arise. The consequences I feared
for the inmates were punishment, e.g. isolation or losing privileges, or
that I might spark some of the on-going conflicts in the jail and cause
violence or even riots. As for the management, I was warned about the
effect it could have if sensitive knowledge got out. Essentially, most
prison administrations in the Philippines break the rules, but if information gets out about specific jails, it can lead to dismissal of the warden or
other high ranking officers.
According to Fine the risks associated with knowledge from fieldwork in
prisons has the consequence that only "few can speak the truth about
prisons without enormous personal vulnerability." (2006, 255). This
was a term I had to face. Practice research tries to even out the inequality between researcher and co-researchers, by seeing the co-researchers
as experts on their everyday life (Jefferson and Huniche 2009). But, the
context of the prison creates another kind of inequality between researcher and co-researchers: "The prisoners were always more vulnerable than we were as outsiders." (Fine 2006, 263).
While an outsider, e.g. researcher or case worker, leaves the jail when
the research is done, inmates are left behind inside the jail and the system. Because inmates remain in jails, which are spaces characterised by
discipline and punishment, the risks they face are different from the
risks the researcher face. If the research has consequences for an inmate, it is likely to be in a coercive or violent form, while the researcher,
sitting at her desk, might only face bureaucratic punishment. This divide
is not only between researcher and inmate, but also between Filipino
and westerner. The fact that the majority of the inmates I was working
with were political prisoners is a clear example of the risk of speaking
your mind in the Philippines. Among the inmates who participated in
this study, a lot had taken part in the armed struggle, but several had
only fought through the use of language. The danger of speaking your
mind against the wrong people or being part of activism, is also seen in
the high numbers of disappeared persons in the Philippines (Amnesty
International 2006). As western researcher I was never faced with these
violent and dangerous risks, however, just the knowledge of their exis-
18
tence still makes me draw a sigh of relief every time I go through the
immigration gate when exiting the Philippines. Thus, effects of research
might be severe, and inmates will not likely be able to escape them. This
leaves them in an extremely vulnerable position compared to the researcher, which requires the researcher to act with great concern for coresearchers and take necessary ethical precautions (Piacentini 2013).
Both Balay’s staff and the inmates honoured me with a great deal of
trust, by telling me detailed stories, some of which could cause serious
damage if told the wrong way. Only once did an inmate express caution
as to what we were supposed to know. When we told him we already
knew the story he became weary of us knowing and told us:
That’s another thing that I wasn't going to talk about... kind
of worried about what you guys know about... as long as you
guys don't write about it, cause it doesn't matter what jail
you say it’s at, even if you say just some jail in the Philippines,
that’s gonna cause a lot of problems (I4)
The stories that are excluded from the thesis are not epic tales that
would change the understanding of the jails, but stories that include
knowledge that could cause problems for the people who participated in
the research or inhabit the jails where it was conducted. While writing
this thesis, it has therefore been considered how this trust could be honoured through a truthful and respectful portray of the knowledge gained.
I have therefore carefully chosen information that can illustrate the analytical findings without revealing confidential or too sensitive knowledge.
3.3 Prison Ethnography
Beyond being a practice research project, this study positions itself
within the tradition of prison ethnography, thereby following in the
footsteps of other studies (Bandyopadhyay, Jefferson, and Ugelvik 2013;
Jefferson 2004; Jewkes 2012; Liebling, Arnold, and Straup 2011; Wacquant 2002). It does so, by attempting to study the culture within Philippine jails through interactions between Balay, jail management and
inmates. This is studied through the classical ethnographic method of
fieldwork, where a researcher tries to immerse herself in the field.
Ethnography is not a classic method of choice for a psychologist. Within
Critical Psychology, it is however very suitable, since it focuses on un-
19
derstanding the subject in his context. What better way to understand a
persons' experience than to try to immerse oneself as much as possible
and be part of his everyday life. Though other psychological approaches
settle for speaking about the everyday experiences, e.g. aiming at an
understanding of the narrative the subject constructs about the everyday, it is emphasised in Critical Psychology that the best way to get to an
understanding of a subjects everyday life, is to participate in it (Dreier
2008). Therefore the ethnographic method was chosen, in an attempt to
become as much a part of the everyday life of the inmates as possible
during my short stay, to be able to share their experiences and feelings.
To be fully immersed in the jails, participating on equal terms with the
inmates was however not possible. It is a fundamental condition for
most prison research that participation is always partly, as researchers
are free to leave the jail, and thus seldom fully share conditions with the
inmates. However, there are examples of prison researchers who have
studied prisons through full participation during their own incarceration
(Narag 2005). Because the researcher cannot immerse herself as a full
participant under the same conditions as inmates, the ethnography of
prison research will always be quasi-ethnography. The ethnographic
ideal of full immersion is hard if not impossible to attain; even more so
in a prison setting. In present study, the quasi character of the ethnography is further enhanced by the short period the study was conducted
in. Even if I had obtained full access, making it possible to live within
the jail, I would still have been a newcomer by the end of the six weeks.
This limits present study to only approaching the everyday life of the
inmates as an outsider, without being able to fully enter the life world of
the prison (Bandyopadhyay, Jefferson, and Ugelvik 2013; Murtagh
2007).
The ethnographic approach also suggest that the researchers must recognise her own position in the field and the way this position affects
both the situations she participates in, and her interpretation of the
situations, as they occur and during analysis. This urges the researcher
to reflect on what she brings to the field. Thus, the person of the researcher is brought into play. Not only the professional identity, but also
private knowledge, such as feelings and memories that affect the way the
researcher acts in and interprets situations (Phillips and Earle 2010).
This reflexivity fits well with Critical Psychology and the focus on the
subjective
20
perspective,
which
Holzkamp
emphasised
when
he
(re)introduced Critical Psychology as science from the standpoint of the
subject in 1983 (Holzkamp 2013). Holzkamp emphasises the importance
of awareness of the subjective perspectives affecting data. Thus, Critical
Psychology oppositions itself to positivistic science ideals, in a similar
way to ethnography, though Critical Psychology grounds this opposition
on theoretical argumentation, while ethnography grounds it in a methodological tradition.
3.4 Researcher Positions
This section presents reflections on my position in the field. Further
reflections on my participation, feelings and thoughts are included in
the analysis. My thoughts and feelings are included, not because they
are seen as a bias, which must be dealt with to get closer to an objective
truth but because "...they provide a lens through which to understand
our data." (Phillips and Earle 2010, 364). A lens which is present when
entering the field, and which is necessary to include to grasp the data
collected.
Following the example of other researchers this section presents considerations about significant factors affecting the way I have been perceived, participated in and interpreted the field; such as gender, race
and autobiographical knowledge (Jewkes 2012; Khawaja and Mørck
2009; Phillips and Earle 2010).
3.4.1 Intern at Balay
My relation to Balay started in 2012 when I became intern for Balay’s
STOV team and after a few months away from Balay, I again visited, to
do the fieldwork for this study. During the whole period, Dignity has
been part of the relation in various ways: I applied for the internship
through contacts at Dignity, during my internship I got to know researchers from Dignity who were working with Balay and later I was
employed as a student assistant at Dignity working on the UPR project.
When the data collection of this study was planned, it was therefore in
collaboration with Dignity. This posed an advantage because the relation
to Dignity allowed access to academic support from researchers who
knew the field of research and the local context and because Dignity had
relations I could draw upon. However, it was also a disadvantage, because I now appeared more as researcher from Dignity than as the student and intern I was before. This created doubt among Balay’s staff,
21
about how to relate to me and what I expected of them. This insecurity
decreased as I arrived in Manila and clarified that in spite of my relation
to Dignity, I was still just a student and I expected nothing of them that
they had not already been doing in connection with my internship and
the UPR project. My relation to Dignity has been changing but always
present during my relation to Balay. It has had an impact that Dignity is
one of the main sponsors of Balay and because my thesis is closely related to the theme and methods of the UPR.
JP and I have often discussed how our roles have been perceived, but it
has been hard for us to establish whether we were perceived as thesis
students, part of the UPR project or representatives from Dignity. At
certain points I have actively expressed that now I was talking as representative for my own project only or now I was talking as partner within
the UPR project. Most of the time however, the consequences of this
entangledness were not clear.
This entagledness not only played a role in my relation to Balay. Though
the inmates were not informed about my relation to Dignity, some of
them made the connection themselves. Just before my research began, a
delegation from Dignity had visited Balay and the jails. In a jail they had
visited an inmate told me:
Send my regards to Denmark; tell them to don't stop supporting Balay, so Balay will not stop supporting us. (F3)
The Denmark he referred to was the Dignity delegation. Though I had
not told him of my relation to Dignity, he assumed, and rightly so, that
there was a connection between these Danish visitors. However, he also
incorrectly assumed that I had an influence on funds of Dignity and
Balay.
3.4.2 Researcher in the Jails
I first entered a Filipino jail in August 2012, as an intern for Balay, supporting the implementation of Therapeutic Community (Woodward
2007) and later, as a researcher observing and interviewing. My position
thus changed through my period of engagement in the jails. Throughout
my work in the jails my relation to inmates has generally been informal
and guided by genuine interest in their lives. At one point however I
focused on information that could be relevant for the implementation of
Therapeutic Community and later I developed a researcher perspective,
22
where the inmates noted that I was systematically taking notes. However, besides the change in activity, I do not believe the inmates perceived me significantly different, depending on the role I was taking.
Rather, it seemed like the fact that I stayed for a long time, visited repeatedly and showed genuine interest in their life, made the relation
gradually become closer and more trusting.
On the other hand, the shift from the position as intern to researcher
changed the relation to the jail management. When I was an intern I did
not have any business speaking to wardens. Later, as my internship focused on the implementation of Therapeutic Community, there was a
purpose for me to speak with some wardens, but from a humble position, as the intern of a service provider and the outcome of my work was
entirely dependent on the wardens.11 During my internship, I developed
a good relation to specifically one warden, which was highlighted by an
emotional farewell when I left the first time, with gift giving and picture
taking, with the IWD staff and the warden.
When I returned to do the fieldwork, I stepped into a new position as
researcher. This entailed a greater dependency for the wardens to act as
gatekeepers and later it entailed a more powerful position, as I gained
knowledge about the jails, and wardens became dependent on my integrity when handling this knowledge. Initially some wardens realised my
dependency, and took advantage of it, by suggesting that I supported
jails financially or materially. However, the more knowledge I gained,
the more entangled I became in the structures of the jails, the less demands I faced. Through my participation, I established a position
somewhere within the hierarchy of the jail, which was not at the bottom
where I started, when humbly asking for access.
One warden tried to influence the content of my research. As he realised
I would be interviewing a group of inmates he was in conflict with, he
questioned my choice of co-researchers and suggested I turned my focus
to inmates who were not associated with Balay. At this occasion, I
downplayed my role as researcher and emphasised that I was only a
student and the topic of my thesis was the clients of Balay. Thus, removing the option of choosing other co-researchers, not by denying the validity of his proposal, but by saying this choice was out of my hands.
Until today Therapeutic Community has not been implemented in the jail
which was the main focus of my internship. The plans developed during my
internship were not followed through. This topic was not discussed with the
warden during the field work.
11
23
At several occasions, I was faced with people telling me about the risks
of working in jails. One warden made a habit out of mentioning the risk
of a hostage situation every time I was in his jail. Interestingly, I had
never heard him talk about this risk while I was an intern. Now, he vividly told me how he had instructed his guards to kill him if he was taken
hostage, so the inmates knew there would be no negotiations. At another
occasion he emphasised that as a white woman, I would be the obvious
target of a hostage situation. It was never clear what the exact goal of
telling these stories was, or if they reflected the level of risk within the
jail. But it portrayed him as a masculine fearless leader and me as dependent on his protection. His remarks about not negotiating with inmates, however questioned his actual willingness to protect me. He emphasised his jail as a place of risk, though at most times, I felt safe in the
company of inmates inside the jail (Bandyopadhyay 2006; Page 2006).
3.4.3 Positions of Power
Several power relations were at stake in the field. I left my position as
student in Denmark and arrived in Manila to a position as foreign researcher connected to a donor organisation. First of all, being white in
the Philippines is connected to a sort of power. This was the case even
for a white inmate I spoke with:
…if you are just white, then you must be better, you know, it
is almost like reverse racism... they just have this, you know,
if you are white you must be rich and you must be better than
me. (I4)
As the quote shows, whiteness is perceived as connected to being better
and having money. However, among leftist inmates, there are antiimperialists who are cautious about engaging with foreigners. The power
related to whiteness is present even for white inmates, though this inmate reported a decline in the differential treatment as they got to know
him.
In my case, I not only had to deal with the position as white, I was also a
visitor and researcher. Being a visitor implied the power to leave the jail.
That is, not a power that can be exerted over others, but the power to
decide for myself, the power of freedom, which was taken from the inmates. Further, as researcher I was perceived to have the power to get
stories out of the jail. This was exemplified by inmates saying that they
wanted to share their story to the world and that they hoped they told
24
me enough. I was seen as someone who could convey messages both
between inmates and management and to the outside e.g. to Balay or
Dignity.
Though much of the power people attributed to me build on wrong assumptions, it affected how I was treated in the jail. To some degree, a
position of power was created, because I was believed to have power.
This probably allowed me more freedom to conduct research but also
caused me to take precautions, to avoid creating changes I could not
foresee the effect of.
3.4.4 A Woman in Male Jails
Gender played a role in multiple ways: It was the constant reminder of
being different, it faced me with classic gender roles and it presented me
with a gender role in relation to the Muslims which I was uncomfortable
with.
Similar to other studies (Liebling 1999; Phillips and Earle 2010) gender
created different possibilities for JP and I. At times we were met by
stereotypes of women as having a "capacity for unconditional emotional support" and men as someone you could engage in "man-to-man"
talks with (Liebling 1999, 160). This was clear in a situation where JP
engaged in a discussion about basketball, with an inmate who had just
shared his feelings about torture experiences and flashbacks with me. In
my field notes I wrote:
I notice the change from torture to male bonding, the mood of
those two conversations is very different, these changes in
mood seem to appear often when the talk falls on torture, either just before or after. Not the gradual return to better
mood, but the abrupt change in the mood of the situation.
(F7)
It is striking how the situation changes as our different positions come
into play, and how the inmate changes his position to adapt. This emphasises a point stressed by Phillips and Earle, who quote Duneier saying:
A different social position can have a serious effect on one’s
work, and one can do better work by taking them very seriously. (2010, 363)
25
This emphasises the importance of awareness of the different social
positions in the field and during analysis.
During research with the Muslims, I always wore long pants out of respect, to cover myself up. Even with my long pants and big t-shirts, I was
less covered than the visiting wife’s of the Muslims, who wore traditional
Muslim clothing and headscarves. I was always in doubt about shaking
the hand of Muslims or not. I tried to follow the customs of Balay’s staff
and only shake the hands offered to me. However, the practices regarding this were inconsistent, and I never felt sure if I should shake people’s
hands or not. Some Muslims happily shook my hand, others gave me a
nod and some shook my hand, and then rubbed their hands in their
shirts as to get the dirt of. Another problem I faced during conversations
with Muslims was their tendency to talk to the man if there was one
present. Thus, they often talked to JP when answering our questions,
even if I was the one posing them. Initially I was frustrated by this, but I
got to accept it more after some time. The closer my relation to the Muslims grew, the more they began to talk directly to me. Thus the gender
role seemed to be of less importance when they got to know me. That is,
the gender roles did not disappear, but resigned to a level where there
existed a tacit agreement about what gender roles we accepted. While on
my part, I accepted to dress respectfully and take certain precautions in
my behaviour, e.g. not shaking hands, the Muslims seemed to have accepted that I was only covering up so much and spoke more and engaged in more eye contact than Muslim women and Balay’s staff. Because this was a tacit agreement, this is only my perception of it. My
discussion about gender roles with Muslim inmates never got beyond
them telling me that they accepted the way I acted and that it was different.
3.4.5 Working with Leftists and Muslims
The relations I had to the Muslim and leftist inmates were affected by
the preconceptions I had about the groups. While I of course always
stayed professional and acted empathetic with the inmates, it came
more natural with some than others.
My relation to the Muslims was challenged by the gender role I was
struggling with. I felt ambivalence between a wish to respect their custom, though not knowing exactly what it was; and being frustrated by
the suppression of women some of the customs reminded me of. Meanwhile JP had focused his work on the Muslims in the high security jail
26
during his internship at Balay, and therefore had long lasting relations
to some of the Muslims. On the other hand, for the leftists, JP’s relation
was challenged by the fact that he felt sceptic about if their actions were
fulfilling the wish of the people they claimed to serve, while my relation
was strengthened by the fact that I felt sympathy for their political beliefs.
These groups brought in to play the fact that I was raised in a nonreligious family, and raised by parents who had leftist values and send
me to a socialist school. My background made it easier to identify with
the leftists than with the Muslims. I was aware of this during the fieldwork, and therefore made an effort to understand the Muslims, and
change my frustrations about the gender role, to curiosity about how
they as Muslims coped with jail life. In practice, we handled this by letting JP lead interviews with Muslims, while I took notes and contributed
with additional questions, and vice versa with the leftists. Thus, being
aware of the bias our autobiography was creating, we tried to minimize
any unwanted effect it could cause during the fieldwork (Jewkes 2012).
As I said my goodbye to a Muslim inmate, who had helped me a lot, he
told me in a very sincere tone, while looking into my eyes:
We will miss you. (F10)
This reminded me of my goodbye in this jail after my internship, where
this sincerity was shown more by the management than the inmates. I
was happy this change had been possible. My efforts with the Muslims
had resulted in a closer relation by the end of the fieldwork, than during
my internship and hopefully this has enabled a better understanding of
their situation.
3.4.6 Coping with the Jail Context
Following this identification with some of the inmates, it is clear that the
researcher is emotionally involved in the context of the study. The
methodological approach implies the need for a level of emotional engagement and ability to reflect upon it. The fact that the study is conducted within jails might have enhanced the extremes of the emotions
the researcher experienced (Yuen 2011). Liebling describes the prison
context as:
Both extremes of human nature - its capacity for good and
evil - are present in prison in perhaps their starkest form. All
27
variations on human behaviour - from our compassion and
wisdom to abuse and life-threatening violence - are observable, or implicit, in the daily round of events... Prisons are
raw, and sometimes desperate, special places. (1999, 152)
Being faced with such a context invokes strong feelings in most people,
and does so in prison researchers as well. The emotional reactions were
many and varied. They differed between happiness about inmates being
released, terror caused by tales of torture, anger against the injustice
inmates faced, frustrations about navigating in all these relations and
excitement about the richness of data.
One of the ways I coped with this harsh context was through the partnership with JP. The coping for example happened outside the jail, just
outside the gate. When the gate closed behind us we often came with
outbursts of laughter and stories that needed to be told. Though we had
been inside the jail just next to each other, we often asked for the confirmation of the other: "Did you see that?", "Do you think that...?" After
most visits we engaged in a kind of cathartic discussion that seemed to
help clarify what we did not understand and let out what needed to be
said out loud. This process resembles the supervision a psychologist
would be expected to go through if conducting therapy, but which is not
standard procedure within this field of research. The partnership seems
to have taken away some of the emotional toll and given us the opportunity to support each other (Sloan and Drake 2013; Drake and Harvey
2013).
The partnership also affected the research inside the jail because we
posed questions from different perspectives and because we took up
more space. To immerse in the jail was complicated as one person and
even harder being two. If one of us had gained the trust of an inmate, he
would not necessarily tell us the same stories, if he did not trust the
other researcher. We sometimes worked around this by the way we
placed ourselves in the room. Thus, when we interviewed an inmate JP
had worked with before, with whom he seemed to share a close bond, I
positioned myself at the edge of the room, behind JP, while he did the
interview. At another instance, a warden chose to send JP into the jail
with a question for an inmate, while he and I continued the conversation. Beyond this, I joined Balay for jail visits before JP arrived to Manila, while JP joined them for visits after I left. In this way we had several occasions of quasi-solo research. We used these occasions to follow
28
directions of our own interests without having to align with the purpose
of the other person’s research, but we also lost the perspective the other
person could have added to the discussions and observations.
3.5 Limitations
This section introduces the limitations of the study. Starting with the
practical limitations of time and space, which have limited the scope of
the study and the degree of corporation with Balay while writing the
thesis. This is followed by reflections on the effect of the classic limitation of selection bias, which was influenced by power relation and by the
difference between clients of Balay and the general jail population.
Lastly, the limitation of quasi-ethnography as a method for a psychological study is presented.
3.5.1 Practical Limitations: Time and Distance
Within the design of this study there are two major limitations: Distance
and time. Distance is a limitation because majority of the research process, though aimed at being practice research, happened while researcher
and practice was separated by great distances. While attempts have been
made to continue discussions with Balay via written correspondence, the
collaboration was closer in the part of the process where I was in Balay’s
office. Small things like everyday conversations about the work and possibility to interact with inmates and ask for their opinions on my observations, created an environment where the thesis was being shaped by
both researcher and co-researchers. While I have been writing in Denmark, the opinions of the inmates have only been represented by the
statements and actions I managed to catch in field notes and interviews.
This has limited the amount of collaboration based practice research in
the last part of the process.
For time; there is the overall limitation of the amount of time available
to write a thesis, and further the limitation of having six weeks in the
Philippines. The six weeks period was chosen because I expected this
would be sufficient to create enough data for a thesis. This exemplifies
how the concern for the research is emphasised beyond the concern for
the practice in this study (Fine 2006; Nissen 2000). If the emphasis of
this practice research had been to change the subjectification processes
in the jail, it would have made sense to stay longer in the Philippines, in
which case, this thesis might not have been written.
29
3.5.2 Selection Bias
Another limitation to the study is that the majority of the inmates who
participated were in some way high ranking. In one jail, we talked to
chairmen, in a prison we spoke to the members of the board and in another jail, the political detainees defined themselves as high ranking
because of the their status as political and the influence it caused. It is
clear that there are many ways to be high ranking, both officially and
unofficially. Some high ranking positions are created by management,
some by inmates; some depend on your positions inside the jail, while
others are caused by your position outside. Common for them are that if
you are spoken of as high ranking, it seems to imply you have knowledge
about and influence upon the situation in the jail, through official or
unofficial channels.
I did not seek to talk to people who were high ranking, but in hindsight,
there is a clear bias in my data in this direction. The bias is reflects who
actually approach me in the jails. As for Balay’s work, some of the high
ranking inmates always stay close when Balay is present, to keep an eye
on things and follow who is helped in which way. This is also used by
Balay, who sometimes let these high ranking inmates help, e.g. by letting
them give out medicine they have brought to the jail.
As for our interview with the leftist inmates, it was clear that they
brought in their highest ranking inmate, even though we never asked to
speak to him. When he entered the room, he was clearly the one who
defined who was allowed to speak, and everything that was said was in
line with party politics. This show how the knowledge I have gained, in
some cases, reflect what the leaders of the jail wants me to know, rather
than what there is to know. For the leftists I interviewed, this prevented
me from getting personal stories and opinions. Instead I was presented
with the official opinion of the group. I therefore had to work harder to
get their personal opinions at other occasions.
Speaking to the high ranking inmates in different groups seems to have
given a good picture of the dynamics between groups, and how the
groups portray themselves to the outside, though it prevented getting a
deeper understanding of dynamics within each group and the personal
stories of the participants.
Another bias caused by selection is that I mainly talked to partners of
Balay, the political inmates. The inmates participating in this study are
30
therefore not representative for the general population within the jail,
but only for the population of Balay’s clients. This study does not seek to
generalise its findings to the whole jail system of the Philippines, or to
the whole group of Balay’s clients. Rather it seeks to exemplify the processes at stake for a subject in a situation similar to the one of the inmates we talked to. The ambition of this thesis is merely to show some
of the problems Balay’s clients face and let them stand as inspiration for
further discussion about the conditions of clients of Balay and other
inmates.
3.5.3 Psychological Limitations
The choice of methods falls in to the classic choice of doing a qualitative
or quantitative study, with the benefits and limitations these approaches
entail. The qualitative method of quasi-ethnography within the framework of practice research was chosen because it fit with the epistemology of Critical Psychology and research experience of Balay. Because of
this choice of method, this research will not be able to generate knowledge that can be generalised to all jails or even to other jails in the Philippines. Rather, it will generate situated knowledge that at best informs
us about general issues, which unfolds in different ways in different
contexts. This is done from an epistemology of knowledge as always
situated, which puts greater value to studies that seeks to get a deeper
understanding of a phenomenon, than studies that explore general
trends (Hacking 2002; Holland 2001; Lave 2011).
As a psychological study, the quasi-ethnographic approach has limited
the study from creating life stories about single individuals, since focus
was to study everyday practices within the jails. Focus was on understanding the current everyday life of inmates, and I did therefore not
seek to create knowledge about their life trajectory. Rather, I focused on
their current positions and stances and how they were influencing and
being influenced by their current life situations (Dreier 2003; Dreier
2008; Jefferson 2004). This is done because there is a need to understand how social institutions are experienced by their participants, to be
able to change them and it was therefore seen as the best perspective a
psychologist could offer Balay to help them push their agenda for prison
reforms (Jefferson 2002; 2003; Nissen 2012).
31
4. Analytical Framework
This chapter presents the analytical framework through the relevant
concepts from Critical Psychology and Foucault’s work. Neither of the
"theories" presents actual theoretical models. While Foucault’s work
present a certain approach to knowledge, Holzkamp has remarked that
Critical Psychology12 is not even an approach but rather a critical paradigm within the field of psychology (Holzkamp 1985; Osterkamp and
Schraube 2013). Since both the approach and paradigm are broad and
entail many possible analytical concepts and definitions of these, this
chapter presents the analytical concepts in the form they are used in this
thesis.
Critical Psychology is presented through an introduction to the critical
approach from which the subject science developed and to the concepts
of participation, subject position, stance and action context, agency, and
interpellation. This is followed by a presentation of the three modes of
objectification Foucault presents as representing subjectification: Scientific knowledge, dividing practices and techniques of the self. Lastly, it is
described how the different approaches within Critical Psychology are
combined and supplemented by the approach of Foucault within this
analytical framework.
Critical Psychology was chosen to explore the subjectification processes
within a context characterised by objectification and Foucault was chosen as supplement because of a need that arose in the data. As the fieldwork progressed the ideological agreement between leftist inmates and
Critical Psychology appeared to represent a bias. While the leftists and
Critical Psychology refer to the same passages of Marx’s writings to reason for the way they act, the Muslims on the contrary, referred to relig-
Though Holzkamp refers to Critical Psychology in the broader sense as a critical paradigm, the concepts chosen for this analytical framework all are rooted in
the German Kritische Psychologie (Holzkamp 1985; Holzkamp 2013), some of
them in the form they have been developed to by Scandinavian scholars (Dreier,
2003; Nissen, 2002). When referring to Critical Psychology this thesis refer to
these particular schools within the paradigm.
12
32
ion to reason for their actions and positioned themselves far from the
reasoning of both Marx, the leftists and Critical Psychology. This led to a
difference in how the inmates handled being detained. While leftist led
an active struggle, Muslims showed acceptance for the conditions they
faced. One group did not appear to cope better than the other, but they
coped in different ways. When looking at their coping through the lens
of Critical Psychology, it initially seemed like the leftists were acting to
gain generalised agency while the Muslims were characterised by restrictive agency and self-hostility. Since the coping of the Muslims
helped them maintain a level of life quality even though they did not act
to expand their action possibilities, it seemed like Critical Psychology
was not fully equipped to explain this religious coping. Foucault’s perspective was therefore included, to counter the ideological bias that appeared. Foucault is suitable to understand how the Muslims seek acceptance of the outside strains put on them and the objectification they
face, as he studied subjectification as a process of objectification through
discourses, practices and power relations outside the individual.
4.1 Critical Psychology: A Subject Science
A grounding principle in Critical Psychology, which led to its formation
as a critical science, is the critique of lack of connection between theory
and practice in mainstream psychology (Holzkamp 1992). Like other
critical social science, Critical Psychology is critical towards the established power structures of society. A thing that sets it apart from these
other approaches is its critique of mainstream psychology through category analysis (Holzkamp 1985). Category analysis developed out of a
critique of mainstream psychology. The critique claim that because
mainstream psychology test theoretically developed concepts on the
subject in an artificial environment, its results reflect the theoretical
construction of concepts rather than the actual practice of the subject
(Holzkamp 1985). Contrary, Critical Psychology argues that subjects
should be understood as societal, that is, as producing and reproducing
society. As mainstream psychology tests how the individual is affected
by stimuli, by the conditions, it fails to recognise the fact that the conditions are produced by the individual. According to Holzkamp, this is
what is unique about human subjects and it should therefore also be
part of psychological science:
33
That human beings produce the conditions under which they
live is what distinguishes them from the animals. (Holzkamp
2013, 19)
This notion show the importance of studying subjects as productive
through their relation with the society they produce, rather than as isolated research objects in a laboratory. Within Critical Psychology it is
therefore of interest to empirical studies how subjects are part of the
production of the society in which they conduct their everyday life. This
is studied from the standpoint of the subject to create a science not
about but for the subject (Holzkamp 1985; 2013). This entails:
Acknowledging the subjectivity of others is identical to acknowledging the groundedness of their actions. Since, however "reasons" are always "first-person", they can only be
recognised in processes of social self-understanding and not
from an "external" position. (Osterkamp and Schraube 2013,
5)
Thus, subject science leaves the criteria of objective causality in exchange for the subjective reasoning of actions. This builds on an assumption of subjective practice as meaningful. That is, if we do not understand why a subject acts in a particular way, it is not because the
action is not meaningful, it is because we do not understand the subjective perspective the action is grounded in. 13 When conducting research
within Critical Psychology the aim is therefore to get closer to an understanding of the subjective reasons for acting in particular ways
(Holzkamp 2013). This is sought by including the participants in research as co-researchers, as they are the experts of their own subjective
perspective. Further, it entails recognising that the researcher cannot
hold the knowledge of the co-researchers against some objective standard, but is researching from a certain subjective perspective, which
influences the research (cf. 3.4, Nissen 2000).
Holzkamp mentions that meaningless actions can exist, but does not describe
when and how (Holzkamp 1992). Further, the possibility of actions that do not
appear meaningful even to the subject himself, because they are grounded in
unconscious reasons is introduced to Critical Psychology through the relation to
psychoanalysis and use of the terms self-hostility, denial and repression (Dreier
2003; Holzkamp 2013; Osterkamp 2009).
13
34
4.1.1 Participating in Action Contexts
Subjects unfold their agency in different locations. This analytical
framework focus on subject’s actions and therefore locations are understood mainly as action contexts. That is, it is recognised that a location
can be a physical location in space, which can be occupied by a group or
individual, and that particular locations are connected with social structures and activities. But as the focus of Critical Psychology is on the social dimensions of the world created by subjects, 14 emphasis is on the
social structures and activities within a given context, and therefore the
concept of action context is introduced (Dreier 2003). An action context
is constituted by social structures and participants and represents a
particular scope of actions for the participants (Dreier 2003). The concept describes the objective action context, that is: possibilities that are
available to participants in the context. However, participants have subjective interpretations of action contexts building on experiences from
their life trajectory across different action contexts. Tolman describes
this interpretation as the subjective experience of a situation:
The subjective situation is thus a personal assessment of one’s
own action possibilities, of where one stands in a particular
objective situation. It is thus an assessment of the actual objective environment, but it is simultaneously an assessment of
one’s self, in that environment. (1994, 109)
According to Tolman, when the action context is subjectively interpreted
the subject assesses himself. This emphasises the inseparableness of
subject and society and show why actions must be understood through
their groundedness in the subjective perspective. As the subject is always assessing the action context from his position and life trajectory,
every assessment will be particular to the subject. This particularity is
understood through the concept of life trajectory, which refers to the
trajectory of the subject across different action contexts; and position,
which refers to a subjects particular social position in relation to other
participants within a given action context. The subject enters different
positions in different action contexts at different points in time and as
Phylogenetic studies within Critical Psychology studies the evolutionary development leading up to the point where the genetic development enabled humans to create society. As society had been created evolution faded into the
background, while the social and societal development gained importance. Thus,
Critical Psychology here depicted as concerned with social dimensions of the
world do not represent the full scope of Critical Psychology (Holzkamp 1985;
Holzkamp 1992).
14
35
such the subjective experience of a particular subject differs across contexts. However, as the concept of life trajectory suggests, the individual
brings something across the different action contexts. The life trajectory
refers to the relations and experiences the subject has to/from other
action contexts. Further, the subject brings personal stances with him
across contexts. Dreier describes the stances as what gives the subject a
sense of coherence across different action contexts and hinders him
from feeling as a chameleon. Dreier defines stances in the following
manner:
By stances I mean the standpoint a subject comes to adopt on
its complex personal social practice, on that of which it is
part, and on its participation in it. (2003, 110)
Though stances transcend action contexts, they are not static. Stances
are dynamic and develop across the life span of a subject as they are
affected by the experiences, practices and positions of the subject as he
participates in different action contexts. The different contexts he participates in allows the subject to reflect upon his stances and practice in
different ways. However, the number of contexts subjects participates in
differs. According to Dreier, there is a risk in being limited to few, maybe
even one, action context:
Being a full participant in one context, in fact, easily makes
us overgeneralize our understandings from that context onto
other contexts. (2003, 107)
Participation in different contexts entails a reflexive potential, as the
subject gets the possibility to take different positions, adding multitude
to his life, while stances guides him to maintain a form of coherence and
meaningfulness across his life trajectory.
4.1.2 Agency
It was presented above that Critical Psychology works from the standpoint of the subject and that the context of the subject should be understood from this standpoint. Let us now turn to the subject and one of the
core concepts necessary to understand why the subject acts in particular
ways; let us turn to agency:
While an action context defines the scope of objectively possible action for participants, the action potency defines the
scope of subjectively possible action. (Dreier 2003, 17)
36
By turning to the concept of agency, we turn to what is only subjective.
While position, life trajectory and action contexts exist objectively but
are experienced subjectively; agency is entirely subjective. Thus, we now
try to enter the mind of the subject, though simultaneously realising we
can never fully do so. What we can do is to try to move closer to this
understanding, by allowing the subject to share the reasoning behind his
perception of himself and his agency. Before we move closer to the subject, it needs to be defined what agency is. Tolman offers the following
definition:
We have defined personal action potence as the exercise of
control by the individual over the conditions relevant to the
satisfaction of his or her needs through participation in societal production. (1994, 113)
Agency is thus exercised by the individual but unfolds, and must be understood, in its relation to society and other individuals. Because Critical
Psychology sees subjects as creators of their life conditions, gaining the
power over the conditions happens through the collective. When uniting
with the collective, the individual not only gains the skill to cope with life
conditions but also power to affect them. This moves Critical Psychology
away from individualisation seen in mainstream psychology, where individuals only need to learn skills to improve their ability to cope with
life conditions. Critical Psychology recognises that not all life conditions
can be changed. Even if uniting, subjects do not have the power to repeal
the law of gravity, but it is emphasised that society is created by subjects
and can therefore be created in alternative ways, e.g. if enough subjects
united, we might successfully abolish prisons.
Generally the individual can seek to gain control over his life circumstances in two ways: generalising or restrictive agency. Several characteristics set these types of agency apart. Firstly, Tolman describes their
different connections to the collective:
Generalised action potency is generalised because it exists for
one as for all. (1994, 116)
The generalising quality of this agency is that it generalises to the collective, also benefitting other participants. Contrary, restrictive agency is
restricted to the one who seeks it. Another difference between the two
types of agency is their relation to power structures. Generalising agency
entail subjects uniting to change power structures and extend their ac-
37
tion possibilities, while restricting agency entails one subject acting
within existing power structures to enhance his own action possibilities.
Holzkamp describes the characteristics of practices leading to restrictive
agency as follows:
In "restrictive agency" joint control over common lifecircumstances is replaced by control and dominance over
others. Wherever one accepts suppressive conditions in order
to benefit from them and defend one’s position within them,
one inevitably passes suppression on to others who are even
more dependent. This moment of control over others - is a basic quality of restrictive agency. (2013, 24)
Thus, restrictive agency is not only restricted to one person, it can even
cause loss of agency for others. Further, Holzkamp continues to describe
how it even poses restrictions to the one acting within given power
structures:
Thus, trying to win out over others necessarily narrows the
basics of my own life. This is the societal dimension of "self
hostility"; it manifests itself in the fact that living at the cost
of others is identical with curtailing one’s own possibilities in
life. (2013, 24)
Even though the subject might be trying to enhance his agency without
uniting with others within current power structures, this does not lead
to extension of his agency. This emphasises another aspect of the inseparability of the individual and society; as the individual is creating
his own conditions he must also nurture these to extent his own agency
and as the conditions are understood as social he must unite with others
when seeking to expand his agency.
Implicit in this description of restrictive agency is a notion of current life
conditions as suppressive, leading to an understanding of individuals
uniting to create generalised agency as fighting for increased freedom,
through the control of life conditions. Here we see how Critical Psychology is critical towards the existing structures in society. However, we
shall now turn to another depiction of the power associated with uniting
as it is presented by Nissen who introduces the concept of interpellation
to understand the process of subjectification.
38
4.1.3 Subjectification as Interpellation
Another perspective on subjectification is to look at the exchange of
power involved. Nissen has done so by describing the process of subjectification through Althusser’s concept of interpellation (Nissen 2002).
By using interpellation to understand subjectification, Nissen not only
moves focus to the power involved in subjectification, he allows a temporary objectification of the subject to enter our understanding of subjectification. This does not mean that he leaves the subjective perspective; rather that he adds the objective perspective as a way to qualify it.
He does so from the reasoning that research has to do more than "accommodating the views and perspectives of the subjects" as it must also
"produce qualities beyond this consensus." (Nissen 2009b, 68). These
qualities are, according to Nissen, produced when science lets the subjective experience enter into dialogue with a more general model.
Interpellation occurs in the meeting between a subject and a community. The term community is here used to describe groups of individuals
within a society. Within the jails, several communities exist, with different relations to each other, e.g. the group of leftists and of Muslims each
have their community which are sometimes in opposition and sometimes work together for common goals, both communities are sub communities within the whole community in the jail, but also have relations
to bigger communities of leftists and Muslims outside the jail, etc. According to Nissen, these communities can be understood as subjects
through the concept of collective subjectivity, because as well as the
subject is related to the community in the process of subjectification, the
community is related to society in a similar production process where it
shows the ability to practice agency and self-reflection (Nissen 2002).
The process of subjectification consists of the community offering the
subject a position, thereby objectifying the subject, until he has acquired
the offered subject position and made it his own. The offered subject
position is an objectification, an empty category, until it is applied on a
subject. Once applied on a subject, the category merges with the already
existing part of the subject. After this merger, the subject has gone
through a development and has combined the new subject position with
the already existing subject. E.g. if a subject is arrested and put in to jail,
he will be offered the subject position as an inmate (the amount of
choice is limited when subjectification involves incarceration). The category "inmate" is an objectification, not a full description of a subject, but
only describes one characteristic of the subject, and the category can
39
therefore be filled by many different subjects. When the subject takes on
the category and makes it his own, he steps out of the objectification as
an inmate, by simultaneously being e.g. an inmate, a man, a Muslim and
a father in his own particular way. When the subject has accepted the
subject position, he as subject affects the community he is participating
in. E.g. he is subjectified by the jail management, and the jail management is affected by the subject. E.g. if the jail is inhabited by a lot of gang
members, they will affect the practices in the jail, how it is managed, the
structures within it and how new inmates are assigned to cells.
The understanding of subjectification as a process of interpellation involves a power relation between subject and community. In Althusser’s
depiction, the community was the state, ruling over its subjects. A clear
power relation was implied in this process of interpellation. This power
relation is hard to see in the depiction of Critical Psychology described
above. However, within the context of this research, within the jails,
power played a major role in the relations within which subjectification
took place. According to Nissen, this power is not only present in the
context of jails, but is an important aspect to include if we are to understand the relation between the subjects, communities and society in
general. Nissen does not only introduce power as an aspect to take account for, he places a major part of the power with the community, with
what was the state in Althusser’s depiction. Thus, Nissen recognises the
importance of studying the mutual power relation to understand subjectification.
Let us turn to how Foucault sees the power not only as mutual but also
as something the individual can subject himself to.
4.2 Foucault: Subjectification as Objectification
Within prison research, Foucault is the author of the classic Discipline
and Punish (1977). His thorough genealogical studies of the prison make
him relevant for a lot of prison research. What makes him of particular
interest to this study is not only his study of the prison but also his studies of subjectification. Though Foucault is well-known for his studies of
power, power was never the focus of his studies. According to Foucault,
the goal of his studies:
...has not been to analyze the phenomena of power, nor to
elaborate the foundation of such an analysis. My objective,
40
instead, has been to create a history of the different modes by
which, in our culture, human beings are made subjects. (Foucault 1982, 777)
His focus on subjectification is similar to Critical Psychology as presented above. However the quote presents us with one major difference:
Foucault seeks to study how human beings are made subjects. Thus, the
apriori productive subject in Critical Psychology is exchanged for a subject produced by outside factors. Foucault takes a step back as he questions what Critical Psychology assumed to be apriori, he questions the
existence of the subject. However, he still ends up close to Critical Psychology, at something productive:
From the idea that the self is not given to us, I think that there
is only one practical consequence: We have to create ourselves as a work of art. (Foucault 1984, 351)
Foucault does not nihilistically deny the existence of a we and I; but his
methodological grip questions the existence of the object of study, in this
case the subject. This shows similarities with category analysis, with the
exemption, that Foucault remains at the questions, while Critical Psychology attempts to find the answers.
Let us turn to the production of subjects. According to Foucault the
process of subjectification happens through three modes of objectification: 1. Scientific knowledge, 2. Dividing practices, and, 3. Techniques of
the self. The following sections will describe these three modes.
4.2.1 Scientific Knowledge of the Subject
Objectification through scientific knowledge has a broad scope as it includes many kinds of knowledge. Thus, legal, economic, philosophic or
biological sciences create different objectifications of subjects as e.g.
criminal, productive, ethical, or alive. Different sciences entail different
discourses that lead to different possible objectifications of subjects.
As well as other knowledge, scientific knowledge is part of a discourse
and an episteme. The discourse is the system within which the statement must be understood, and the statement or concept is where Foucault’s analysis start (Fogh Jensen 2005). The episteme is the overall
structure, within which several discourses exist, and it determines what
possible truths can be constructed within discourses. The discourse is a
group of statements that are in general agreement with each other.
41
However, the discourse is in constant development and statements that
contradicts the already existing discourse lead to development of the
discourse, where the truth posed by the statement will be rejected, included or moderated.
Scientific knowledge of different kinds, represent different discourses
with different possible truths. Within these discourses different objectifications of the subject are found. According to Foucault even "subject"
is an objectification constructed within discourse. Though he does not
reject the existence of individual human beings, he hesitates to confirm
it, and questions concepts used to describe it (Elders 1974).
4.2.2 Dividing Practices in Disciplinary Power
Dividing practices puts the knowledge from scientific discourses into
use. In Foucault’s writings it is represented by his studies of hospital,
asylum and prison. Foucault describes dividing practices as:
The subject is either divided inside himself or divided from
others. This process objectifies him. Examples are the mad
and the sane, the sick and the healthy, the criminals and the
"good boys". (Foucault 1982, 777)
In this study the inmates are divided and objectified as inmates and
further within the jail, they face the division between different areas and
roles offered based on criteria such as affiliations and legal case. Thus,
the majority of dividing practices within this study are examples of disciplinary power.
Disciplinary power is exercised through three techniques: hierarchical
observation, normalising judgement and examination. Hierarchical
observation is vividly described through the studies of Bentham’s Panopticon (Rabinow 1984; Foucault 1977). In the panopticon architecture
enable the hierarchical observation characteristic of discipline, but this
observation can also take other forms. E.g. informants among inmates
or surveillance cameras. The point of hierarchical observation is the
constant possibility of being observed, which makes the ones subjected
to observation behave as wished for, in Foucault’s words: "discipline
produces subjected and practiced bodies, "docile" bodies"(Foucault
1977, 138).
42
To take advantage of these docile bodies there has to be of standard for
them to conform to. This happens through normalising judgement.
Normalising judgement holds the subject against some standard described in discourse, e.g. through scientific knowledge. This power both
objectifies individuals' similarities and differences:
In a sense, the power of normalization imposes homogeneity;
but it individualizes by making it possible to measure gaps, to
determine levels, to fix specialities, and to render the differences useful by fitting them one to another. (Foucault 1977,
184)
Thus the normalising standard gives dividing practices the potential to
establish homogeneous groups by dividing practices that exclude the
ones that do not conform.
The third technique for practice of disciplinary power is the examination. The examination combines hierarchical observation and normalising judgement and represent the ritual where the individual is subjected
to normalisation. Through genealogic analysis, Foucault shows how the
examination makes every individual a case, as its emergence is connected to the emergence of the need to document facts about individuals. The examination and the case files it leads to creates cases individuals can be held up to throughout their life, moving dividing practices
from hierarchical observations of the moment, to constant observation
where information can reach across time and place (Foucault 1984).
Disciplinary practices separate the ones who do not live up to the norms
and make them docile bodies, who can at least live up to the standards
posed by society for the ones who deviate from the norm. E.g. by being
criminal the inmate has deviated from the norm, but through discipline
he should become docile and at least behave properly while within the
jail, maybe even come back in to the herd of the normal population who
are not criminal.
4.2.3 Techniques of the Self
The two modalities above described power relations between an individual and another individual, group, institution or discourse, however,
Foucault argue that the individual even subjects himself to objectifying
power:
43
There are two meanings of the word subject, subject to someone else by control and dependence, and tied to his own identity by a conscience or self-knowledge. Both meanings suggest a form of power which subjugates and makes subject to.
(Foucault 1982, 781)
The practices in which the individual is subject to himself are the techniques he uses to know and care for himself. Foucault traces both techniques back to the ancient Greeks through genealogic analysis. However,
he argues that knowledge of the self has been dominant in modern depictions of ancient Greek philosophy, though care of the self plays a
major role in ancient Greek writings. He stresses the importance of emphasising the care of the self and questions our knowledge of ourselves:
The history of the "care" and the "techniques" of the self
would thus be a way of doing the history of subjectivity; no
longer, however, through the divisions between the mad and
the nonmad, the sick and nonsick, delinquents and nondelinquents, nor through the constitution of fields of scientific objectivity giving a place to the living, speaking, labouring subject; but, rather, trough the putting in place, and the transformations in our culture of "relations with oneself," with
their technical armature and their knowledge effects. (Foucault 1997, 88)
Thus Foucault suggests we go beyond the limits of binary understandings created by dividing practices, normative judgement and scientific
knowledge. Instead he suggests a focus on the relation with oneself. He
suggests that this should be done by looking at government of the self
instead of governmentality as practiced on others. According to Martin
et. al. this suggestion illustrates a development in his own writings
(1988). Initially he was concerned with the knowledge of the self, which
he explored through studies of deviance from society in The Birth of the
Clinic (1973a), Madness and Civilisation (1973b) and Discipline and
Punish (1977). In his later writings however, his interest turned towards
the care of the self rather than the knowledge of the self as both are important to understand the self (Foucault 1993; 1997).
While Foucault explored techniques of the self as they emerged in ancient Greece and developed through history with Christianity, he emphasised that techniques of the self take different forms in different cultures and contexts (Foucault 1984). Thus, the techniques found in a
44
Philippine jail might vary a lot from the ones Foucault describes. For
this thesis it is thus only important to know, that techniques of the self is
one of the three modalities that creates subjectivity and that it is defined
as ways the individual acts upon himself to become a certain kind of
subject (Foucault 1988).
4.3 Subjectification - Objectification - Power
Critical Psychology and Foucault have argued for different understandings of subjectification, particularly, different perceptions of the power
involved and of objectification. Dreier’s critical psychological perspective focused on an understanding of the relation between subject and
society characterised by participation. Holzkamp left more room for the
role of power in participation, though he placed much of it with the subjects struggling for power and defined the struggle as revolutionary
(Holzkamp 2013). Nissen went one step further and recognised the
power placed in the conditions subjects live under, by introducing the
term collective subjectivity, and the fact that the subjects who unite to
generalise their agency might gain a form of power which can be exerted
over others and which the subjects who want to unite have to deal with
(Nissen 2002; Nissen 2012).
The different understandings of power ascribed to subjects and society
might reflect ideological differences among the writings within Critical
Psychology. The writings of Holzkamp have before been criticised for
depicting the subject as revolutionary, as the revolution could be seen as
the ideal way to obtain generalised agency. Though Holzkamp rejected
the critique of revolution as the ideal mean for generalisation of agency,
he maintained the understanding of subjects as aimed at gaining influence on his life conditions by stating about Critical Psychology:
It is a means of enabling each subject her/himself subjective
experiences the particular ways in which the need to subjective control appears, so that the coherence between her/his
living conditions and life interests becomes clearer and the
necessity of acting towards influence on her/his living conditions/life quality becomes apparent. (Holzkamp 2013, 43)
Though Critical Psychology admits to be political, as all theory is according to both Critical Psychology and Foucault, this thesis argue that it
would be a weakness for the analysis in this study, to only use theory
45
that is grounded in ideological reasoning building on Marx. Since Critical Psychology emphasises extension of action possibilities as important
to generalisation of agency, a view that concurs with the strategies of the
leftists, while it lacks the ability to explain the apparent wellbeing expressed by the Muslims, who accept the restrictions of the conditions
they live under and find other ways to maintain agency and subjectivity.
Foucault is therefore included to exemplify an understanding that recognises majority of power as placed outside the subject. He takes us a
step closer to the parts of mainstream psychology that Critical Psychology criticised for seeing the individual as defined by condition, however,
he simultaneously recognises discourses as produced by humans,
though he argues that subjects are produced in a similar manner, and
therefore positions himself differently in relation to Critical Psychology.
Foucault’s perspective seem less tainted by ideology, however, we must
remember that Foucault recognises all theory, science and discourse as
political, also his own. However, he leaves it up to the reader to find out
by himself in what way Foucault is political. He denies to affiliate his
authorship with any political group, though he at one time was a political activist himself (Welch 2010). Thus, while Critical Psychology could
be criticised for being too ideological, Foucault can be criticised for his
lack of explicit reflection upon his ideological position.
Critical Psychology recognises theory as political and solves this by playing with open cards, but argue for a need for generation of new theory
building on a different ideology than mainstream psychology (Holzkamp
1985; Osterkamp and Schraube 2013). Following this example, this thesis applies the concepts of Critical Psychology and admits to the political
consequences this has. But to be able to better grasp the life of the Muslims, who clearly do not share the ideological implications of this theory,
Foucault is included to examine coping strategies that entail acceptance
of restricted action possibilities while maintaining life quality.
46
47
48
Part III
Subjectification in
Philippine Jails
5. Analysis
After the presentation of methods of the study and the analytical framework we are now ready to enter the jail. In this chapter the analytical
framework will be applied to data as we immerse ourselves in the lifes of
the inmates.
The chapter will revolve around the two groups of inmates who participated in the study: the Muslims and leftists. It is shown how participation in these collectives offered the inmates subjectification through
interpellation, as an alternative to the objectification of the jail, which
was key to resist the objectification of confinement.
The first part explores how the groups describe themselves, then continues to the relations between the groups, and finally how the groups cope
with two classic subjects for the study of confinement: rights and privileges (Hornberger 2007; Liebling, Arnold, and Straup 2011) and time
(Jefferson 2012; Cohen and Taylor 2006; Kolind 2004).
The second part of the chapter studies relations between inmates and
outsiders, respectively the jail management and Balay. It is shown how
closer relations between the management and the inmates of the high
security jail has the potential to create subjectification within a relation
that is otherwise characterised by objectification. Finally, it is shown
how the work of Balay exemplifies the classic dilemma of social work; of
how to recognise clients as subjects with agency when applying generalised methods.
The third part of the chapter is a brief summary of the findings and their
relation to the general issue of subjectification in jail.
5.1. Life inside the Jail
This first section of the analysis is concerned with how the community of
inmates inside the jail cope with the objectifying power of confinement.
50
This is analysed by looking at 1. The groups inmates have constituted
themselves in inside the jail, 2. The relations between these groups, 3.
How the groups related to rights and privileges through their fight for
agency and 4. How the inmates coped with the objectifying power of
time in confinement.
5.1.1 Groups in the Jail
A striking trait about the high security jail is the groups of inmates. The
jail is divided into different floors and wings, and in each wing there is a
semi closed community. Some wings are more open than others; some
are mixed of several groups. Majority of the jail is inhabited by Muslims,
and in their area, you can walk around between four different wings.
Another major group is the gangs, who inhabit three wings of the jail.
The gangs have a history of being in conflict in jails where they can interact, and they are therefore separated so each gang have their own
wing (Narag 2005). The leftist represent a minority within the jail and
share one wing with a Chinese minority.
This section shows how the leftist and Muslim groups have different
strategies to cope with the objectifications of jail life.
The Leftist Group
The leftist group portrayed themselves as a particular strong collective
subject from the first encounter. This section will start by introducing
how the leftists' wish to portray themselves as a cohesive group with
shared principles affected the course of the fieldwork and then go onto
analyse how this can be an expression of generalised agency.
When the interview with the leftist group was conducted, I was met by a
very tight group. My initial idea was not to do a group interview. I
wanted to interview two partners of Balay: The former chairman, who
was associated with the communist group and an inmate who was accused of being a high ranking communist, who was not affiliated with
leftist groups. When I arranged the interview, I suggested that the two
were present at the same time, since I knew one of them was vulnerable
due to recent torture experiences, I therefore thought it was best that his
cell mate was present during the interview. Beyond the two I wanted to
interview, I needed an interpreter. I suggested to use my own interpreter, but the former chairman, suggested it was better to include an
interpreter from their group. As I knew the conflicts going on and was
concerned about the knowledge about other groups my interpreter
51
would gain, or prevent me from gaining, I agreed to use their interpreter. To my surprise, they suggested to include their leader as interpreter. The former chairman was the formal leadership of the wing, until
the complaint made the warden suspend him from this position. The
leader who was now included as interpreter was the political leader of
the leftists. While the chairman has the formal leadership within the jail,
the power seems to lie with the other leader. Since Balay’s staff had already suggested the necessity of interviewing him to know what was
going on in the leftist group, I happily included him.
When I showed up for the interview, the interpreter was in a meeting
with visitors. Instead, another inmate from the leftist group was included as interpreter, but he did not act as one. He only translated few
times and often answered himself instead of letting the other inmates
answer. At first, this caused me frustrations and I repeated my questions
and directed them explicitly at the persons I wanted to answer. After a
while I let go of my frustrations, realising that what I was experiencing
reflected a characteristic of the leftist group; they wanted to express
themselves as a group with common principles. This was emphasised
when the other leader, who was supposed to act as interpreter, entered
during the interview, and clearly had the power to define what the group
expressed. In his presence the other inmates grew silent and only spoke
when he asked them to. In this way they presented a coherent picture of
the leftist group, though the fact is that around a third of the group are
clients of Balay, a fourth are former clients who declined the support
and the rest have never received support of Balay. This is just one example of the existing differences of opinion within the group, e.g. in their
attitude towards service providers as Balay.
Analysis show that personal opinions are absent in the statements of the
leftists. The common principles of the group is emphasised and two of
the leftist inmates spoke as in one voice, finishing each other’s sentences
and continuing each other’s stories. The inmate who was only accused to
be a leftist did not speak much, though at the few occasions where he
spoke, his statements were in contrast to the leftist inmates, as he spoke
of his feelings and experiences, but not about his principles or his relation to the group.
Participation in a group like this is an example of a way to seek generalised agency (Holzkamp 2013). By being part of the group, the individual
becomes part of a community that supports each other, and uses the
52
strength they obtain as a group to fight for better conditions. As part of
this group the inmate further gain access to some of the service providers, e.g. the progressive group Karapatan, progressive Christian groups
and Balay. Thus, members of the group gain influence over their life by
getting access to material and legal support and by having a community
to fight with for their causes. These causes are however what the members have to comply to.
As described before (cf. 4.1.3) subjectification happens through a process of interpellation. The inmate has to go through the process where the
group objectifies him as "someone with shared principles", and when it
is established that he shares the principles he is recognised as participant in the group (Nissen 2002). The principles you had to comply with
in this group were quite specific. The inmates I spoke with were not just
sharing some general leftist believes, they were associated with the CPP,
either with NDF or NPA.
To comply to the principles, an individual might have to give up parts of
himself or chose not to perform certain practices to become part of this
group. Thus, his agency might be restricted in one sense, e.g. he cannot
speak against the principles, because he participates in a group which
can enable him to generalise his agency in another way. When he has
accepted this and the group has accepted him as member, he will be able
to participate as a subject, also bringing to the group what he is due to
his other subject positions and life trajectory. When he has entered as a
subject he gains a kind of influence in the group, firstly by his mere being present he will affect the group, and secondly he might change the
group by bringing in new qualifications or stances (Dreier 2003; Nissen
2002).
This was for example seen when the current leader of the group entered
the jail, and shortly after, five of Balay’s clients declined the services. He
brought with him a new stance towards service providers; that the
members of the group should only engage with service providers who
engage in the political struggles for the principles of the group. However, other participants in the group had other stances towards service
providers, and the group settled with having some members who accepted the services of Balay and some who did not. The fact that this
leader had this much influence on the behaviour of other participants in
the group just after he entered the jail, shows that this groups is not
limited to the group within the jail, rather it is part of a bigger commu-
53
nity, a system of groups (Nissen 2004). He gained his influence from his
position as high ranking in NDF. A group that is part of the bigger group
of the CPP and which is related to different groups, such as NPA, political detainees and regional and local groupings. Thus when he entered
the group of leftist inmates, it was not as a neutral newcomer, but as a
subject with a specific life trajectory, holding specific positions, which
from the start placed him in a particular position within the hierarchy of
this group.
Another aspect that characterises this group is the degree of collectification which seems so massive that the individual almost dissolves into
the group. The unity of the group is so strong that the collective subjectivity of the group at some point becomes limiting for the individual
agency of the participants. Participation in the leftist group is prioritised
so heavily, that participation in other groups becomes difficult. E.g. it is
hard to maintain a position as a father if you leave your family to fight
for the revolution in the mountain provinces or if you are detained. It is
not unusual that participation in one group entails rejection of other
groups or possibilities, however, what is special to this group, is that the
commitment to one group is so dominating, that most other relations
becomes secondary. This is common among political prisoners, who are
often part of a strong community during their struggle outside the jail.
As political prisoners often see their detainment as part of the struggle,
which the leftist group did, it is natural for them to seek to continue the
relation to the community they were part of in the struggle outside the
jail, when they are inside. The group gains further importance as it "is
one of the key bulwarks against domination by the prison system."
(McEvoy, McConnachie, and Jamieson 2007, 308).
The strong community however still has its weaknesses. In the jails
some of the leftists talked about being let down by their group during
their arrest; and for the convicted leftists in prison the costs of the
struggle seemed to catch up to the inmates after years of imprisonment.
The challenges to the affiliation with the group let inmates to reconsider
their part in the struggle. Though they still expressed support for the
principles, some expressed doubt about their future in the movement.
For some, the cost had become too big, and they wanted to go back to
their family when they got out, others felt let down by their group, and
wanted to proceed with the struggle in other ways (Jefferson Forthcoming).
54
The Muslim Group
If we turn to the Muslims, they also depicted themselves as homogenous, though their discourse left more room for personal stories and
differences. Common for the group was that they defined themselves as
Muslims. The differences presented were for example the degree and
way people within the group practiced Islam and the presence of different tribes and gangs. Common for the group defined as Muslims within
this section is that they live within the Muslim area of the jail. Though
some inmates were affiliated with both gangs and Muslims, the defining
characteristic for the definition of the Muslim group is which group they
chose to stay with, which affiliation they thereby prioritise. This is an
example of how space plays a part in the subjectification of inmates. By
choosing to stay in one place, the inmates chose a certain subject position, which is enhanced, by the locked doors of the jail.
Within the Muslim group there was a lot of difference in the religiousness people expressed. For example seen in the degree of participation
in the religious rituals and in their way of speaking about Islam, that is,
how often they would reason with answers like:
The decision must be from God. (F5)
In spite of differences among the Muslims, Islam was a uniting factor.
This could for example be observed during prayer when the Muslims
rolled out their praying rugs in the common area and hallways of the
Muslim area. A staff at Balay described the prayers as a way the Muslims
united and added:
I think that being able to pray every day and refresh your belief in God contributes to your overall well-being. And they
don't just pray, they do it all together, as one, I think that in
that way there is solidarity and brotherhood. (E1)
This quote describes two potentials of the prayer. It refreshes your belief, that is, the prayer you are saying and the preaching of the Imam will
remind you of the content of the religion and you will confirm this with
the postures of your body and the words formed by your lips. And it
confirms the cohesiveness of the group, as they practice together. This
can be seen as ritualised generalisation of agency. That is, through
prayer the Muslims not only participate in the group, they perform a
ritual that cements the generalised agency.
55
Relations among Muslims were described as Muslim brotherhood, as a
kind of family. Often relations in the Muslim area were described similar
to family life: e.g. when describing conflicts within the group, one inmate repeatedly compared them to family life, as shown in the following
quote:
Even though brother and sister in same home, you have misunderstandings. We treat each other like family. If we have a
problem we ask to borrow. We support each other. (I2)
Thus, conflicts in the jail were normalised, and detached from relations
to the environment in which they occurred. This entailed a normalisation of the people within the relations, distancing them from the objectification as inmates and approaching subjectification as brothers in a
family. The emphasis on the family like quality of relations did not only
set it apart from the relations one could expect within an institution, but
also from the relations to friends this particular inmate had before he
entered the jail:
If you love friend 50%, you love your brother 100%. If you got
sick inside prison, your brother outside would not help you,
your brother inside. The true colour of your friend, you don't
know. The colour of your brother you know when you got no
money, nothing, he is still there. Like family, still there, when
you go up, down, whatever. (F5)
This should be understood in the light of the experiences of this inmate
when he was arrested. Soon after his arrest, he gained access to a phone
and called up a friend to ask for help. The next time he called, the number was out of use. The support he did not get from his friends, he got
from his co-inmates, the people who understood his situation, the people with whom he shared action context (Dreier 2003). Rejection from
people on the outside is seen among Muslim inmates, who are let down
by family and friends and among leftist inmates who are led down by
their comrades or do not receive the support they expect from their political group (Jefferson Forthcoming).
While the Muslims sought practical support through brotherhood, emotional issues were dealt with in the relation to the Ustadz or the Quran
itself:
56
If my family is quarrelling... I got the stress, I surrender to
Allah almighty, stress... When we have counselling from the
Ustadz, we ask an advice for the Ustadz, like this. So for the
medicine of stress here is to read the Quran. (I2)
It is exemplified by the quote that it was not the conditions of the jail
that caused emotional stress, it was their families outside. The hardest
thing to cope with within the jail seemed to be that they were not able to
perform their roles as fathers and husbands, especially when their families experienced problems. The greater importance of the brotherhood
between Muslims and the explanations of conflicts in the jail as family
can be seen as ways to construct a kind of pseudo family inside the jail.
This pseudo family had many characteristics of a family, both positive,
such as closeness of relations and being able to count on your Muslim
brothers in the jail, but also negative, such as quarrels and lack of ability
to choose who you are in family or in jail with (Kolind 2004).
Reading of the Quran and counselling from Ustadz can be seen as techniques of the self unfolding in this particular context. Thus, when Muslims face emotional problems, they practice self-governance and care of
the self through these techniques and thereby subjectify themselves as
good Muslims (Foucault 1988). Depending on the content of the counselling from Ustadz, knowledge of the self might also play a role in this
process. However, the fact that the Muslims prefer to seek the support of
their religious leaders and the Quran, over their Muslims brothers, who
know them well, suggest that the knowledge about the ideal self within
Islam is more important than the knowledge about their own self. That
is, knowledge about the techniques they must perform to care for the
self (Foucault 1997).
The Quran offers a discourse with certain possible subject positions,
certain ways to live. As such, it can be seen as setting up restrictions to
the agency of the Muslims through the rules of sharia law and the prescription of certain values and beliefs. In this way Islam, as well as other
religions or fixed ideologies, can be seen as restricting the agency of the
Muslims in a way similar to other outside factors, e.g. the discourse and
rules of the jail. However, there is a major difference: The Muslims
chose to practice their religion. Though this might entail restrictions
because one has to comply with a set of beliefs and rules it also entails
the potential for generalisation of agency by becoming part of the Muslim group. In this way, becoming member of the Muslim group is similar
57
to becoming a member of the leftist group - one has to comply with certain principles to participate in the group; one has to go through the
process of interpellation (Nissen 2002; 2004). What sets both groups
apart from a lot of other groups is the amount of written rules. Membership in other groups might not entail being faced with written rules, but
one still has to comply with the principles of the group. Within the Muslim and leftist groups, members also have to comply with unwritten
rules. E.g. the Muslims agree that family visits are important and that
privileges are valued, while leftists agree to fight for food and justice
even if it means losing privileges. Neither of these cases is in the written
rules, but they are part of the conduct within these groups of Muslims
and leftists.
Groups Offer Subjectivity under Objectifying Conditions
This section showed how inmates entered into subjectification processes
by participating in groups, as an alternative to the objectification offered
by the jail, and that participation in groups entailed a potential to generalise agency. In the process the inmates had to let go of some of their
autonomy, to go through the objectifying part of the subjectification
process, where they complied to either religion or political principles, to
become part of a group and thereby regain autonomy and extend agency
by uniting with members of the group.
5.1.2 Relations between Groups: The Complaint
To explore the relations between the groups, this section takes its departure in a conflict in the jail. This is done because the jail was going
through the aftermath of a conflict, which had challenged and changed
relations between groups in the jail, at the time when the research was
conducted. The conflict was about a complaint letter written by the leftist group send to the Department of Justice, the Commission on Human
Rights and the National Headquarters of the BJMP. According to the
leftist, the complaint was about the arbitrary arrests and unjust treatment they faced in the justice system. The complaint also described the
conditions they now faced inside the jail, including the lack of nutritious
food. It was this latter part about food that created a conflict. The complaint was send about three months before the research was conducted
and had caused inspection visits from some of the authorities it had
been send to, but had not caused repercussions for the management or
change in the food rations. Some privileges were temporarily withdrawn, but most were back in place when the research was conducted,
though the leftists faced more isolation than before. Partly because they
58
were afraid to leave their wing; partly because they were not allowed to
leave it as much as before. What had changed was the relations between
groups in the jail and between the leftists and the warden.
The Muslims said they respected the leftists and understood why they
had complained, but that they did not support it. They said the privileges were too important and a complaint entailed the risk of the warden
being fired and disappearing together with the privileges. They told me
that they did not doubt the content of the complaint, but did not support
going through with it. An inmate told me:
All jails in the Philippines: the system is corrupt. Even not in
jail, even in the police station. All over the government, the
government of this state is corrupt. (I2)
They saw it as given that there was corruption in the food budget of this
jail. This particular inmate had experienced the management of six different wardens and told me that the food had always been the same,
prison food. He also said that he actually did not care:
Even though they did the complaints, we are not satisfied.
Even if I had lobster, chicken, meat, I am not satisfied. I will
not be satisfied before I am free. Even with the cheap food in
the market I will be satisfied, when I am free. (F5)
Good food for him would be to enjoy even a simple meal in freedom and
prison food would always be prison food. While he disagreed with the
importance of raising the food issue, he showed support for the part of
the complaint concerned with the rotten justice system. However, it is
not certain that he would support the complaint even if the issues particular to this jail were left out, as all complains raised by inmates from
the jail could reflect negatively on the warden.
The gangs in the jail showed little understanding for the complaint.
While the Muslims and the warden told us that there was a risk that the
gangs could have gone to violence because of the complaint, an inmate
from the gangs presented a pragmatic description of the risk of violence:
I mean – no people are just irritated, I mean people say stuff,
but you don’t have much opportunity to release stress or
whatever, but they show their dissatisfaction with what
they're doing, in hopes that they will hear it and realise, you
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know, you are not just pissing off the government, you are
pissing off everybody here, and you know, let’s face it, you
are in jail with a bunch of terrorists murders, kidnappers,
bank robbers –it’s not the kind of people you want to get in to
problems with, you know, so stop! (I4)
He added that if the complaints had caused them to lose privileges, violence probably would have happened. As there was only a temporary
decline in privileges, the complaint only caused anger. The anger had
resulted in people from the gangs yelling at the leftists, "to blow off
steam" (I4). This had scared the leftists, since their wing was surrounded by three wings with gangs who were clearly angry with them.
Generally the Muslims and leftists talked about each other with respect,
though the conflict highlighted the differences between the groups and
decreased interactions. It frustrated the leftist that the Muslims did not
share their understanding of human rights and it frustrated the Muslims
that the leftist pursued the complaint after they had been told that it
would jeopardise the privileges. The groups still agree to have something
in common. The Muslims see innocence as the common trait between
Muslims and leftists, while leftists emphasise the commonality of being
political detainees. Thus, the differences remain, but the conflict has
ebbed out and the relation between the groups still exists. Outside these
groups might have ended their relation, but in the jail they are confined
and forced to some sort of contact. This is what the inmates call politics
of the jail. One inmate described the politics as the hardest thing to deal
with in jail:
The issue it is the politics, you know it’s that constant force of
politics... politicians out there they go into that willingly and
not everybody has the stomach for it, people might not want
to have anything to do with it, but here you don't have a
choice. It’s like a mini version of the world, you know you are
forced to play politics, and that’s the hardest thing to deal
with. (I4)
The groups might have their differences, but inside the jail they are
forced to deal with them. This is part of what Carrabine terms as the dull
compulsion of jails. They are forced to settle their conflict by the system
of the jail and if not a riot might have occurred. However, the nature of
the jail instils a culture where conflicts rarely develop into riots, even
though there often is cause to do so (Carrabine 2005). It is in this cul-
60
ture the two very different groups find some common ground and step
into a relation rarely seen outside the jail.
5.1.3 Rights and Privileges
The status of human rights in the jails is in many ways problematic and
rarely live up to UN minimum standards (UNODC 2006). What is interesting with regard to subjectification is not if the jails live up to an international standard; rather it is relevant to explore the local understandings of rights and how they affect inmates' everyday practices (Merry
2006; Wilson 1997). The understandings of rights in the jails are manifold; they differ between jails, between groups in jails and even within
groups there exist many definitions of the concept of rights. Often the
definitions are related to privileges and sometimes to violations. The
local understandings are explored through the different discourses
about rights and privileges existing among different groups. This section
shows how the discourses about rights and privileges involved a fight for
generalising agency and unforeseen self-hostility.
To be Worthy of Human Rights
In one jail, I was surprised when I discussed human rights with some of
the inmates who told me that they did not feel they deserved human
rights, and they meant this accounted for most of the population in the
Philippines. Half a year later, I discussed human rights with this same
group once again. But this time they introduced the subject in another
language. The subject came up at a visit with Balay, where the social
worker of Balay brought the inmates papers about torture and human
rights violations, for them to teach other inmates about the topic. As I
asked the inmates what the papers were about, they said they were
about violations. It took some time and explanation before I realised it
was human rights violations. The example given by an inmate was the
violations Balay’s clients had experienced during arrest. The lack of arrest orders and the torture they were subjected to. This seemed to be
where human rights and survival met (Badiou 2001). The violations can
be seen as representing the threat to survival, this makes human rights
relevant and is at a level of human rights that they feel entitled to, as
they feel entitled to survival. However they still only spoke about violations. They wanted to teach the other inmates when the police or jail
guards violated their human rights, to teach them to stop violations
from happening, not to begin to actively claim their rights. This positions the inmates within a minimalistic understanding of the ethics of
rights. This understanding has been criticised by Badiou because it pre-
61
sumes the existence of evil as necessary for the existence of good. Thus,
the inmates can only fight for their rights because the violations exist.
Badiou further criticises these ethics to be objectifying as it suggest an
essentialist understanding of human nature and creates a victim role for
persons who suffer human rights violations (2001).
These practices can be explained as defence against attacks on the inmates' agency. The conditions they face are threatening their agency
through violations on their human rights. This makes them react by
fighting for the agency they had. They fight to regain the agency they
had before and seem to perceive the fight for generalising agency as out
of reach at this point. Interestingly, even though they limit their fight for
generalising agency with respect to human rights, to fighting against
violations, their actions leads them towards extending their agency in
another respect. Holzkamp describes the generalisation of agency as not
only a psychological phenomenon but as:
...a real improvement in the subjective quality of my life is
synonymous with enhanced influence over my objective life
conditions - that is, with my opportunities for forming alliances, i.e. uniting with others. (Holzkamp 2013, 21)
When reading Holzkamp’s emphasis on the social aspect, on uniting
with others, it is clear that there is another potential for generalising
agency in the inmates' project. Teaching other inmates about human
rights violations not only entails spreading knowledge, about protection
against violations; it entails uniting against attacks on the agency of the
inmates which can actually enhance the agency by strengthening the
community among inmates, by sharing a common third: protection of
the community against violations. This common third brings the political detainees, the pushers, the hacking syndicate and the innocents of
the jail closer together, by giving them something to participate in together.
Rights and privileges in the high security jail
In the high security jail, there were two markedly different understandings of rights, which were related to different groups in the jail. The
Muslims spoke of privileges instead of rights. E.g. the privilege of visitors getting inside the jail, of sunning and of having electronic devices in
the cells. They took the privileges and told us that other problems of the
jail management could be accepted because these privileges represented
what was most important. Thus, they did not complain about corruption
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or food conditions, as these were acceptable as long as they had the
privileges.
Within the Muslim group, the focus on privileges can be seen as connected to a more general discourse within the group, which largely build
on a religious approach to the world and life in the jail. Following this
line of thought the Muslims often explain what is happening to them as
their fate and the will of Allah. They seek meaning in what is happening
to them, rather than attempt to change it. They seek to make amends for
some sin they might have committed, by practicing their religion more
than before they were arrested. Exemplified by one of the inmates who
told us:
Maybe I forgot... to pray, to live right. (I2)
He said this, in connection to telling us about how he was living a decent
life outside, how he was not involved with gangs though living in a tough
neighbourhood, how he was not drinking etc. But the search for meaning still made him think that maybe he did something wrong, there had
to be a reason.
The discourse of the Muslims entailed acceptance, or at least search for
acceptance, of being defined by outside factors. The outside factors are
seen as related to Allah, and this makes the challenges that the Muslims
face, challenges Allah wanted them to face, not problems rooted in the
actions of jail management or justice system. This discourse could justify what was happening as the will of Allah, make it meaningful and
create solace for the Muslims. This was for example seen in the practices
of care of the self (cf. 5.1.1).
The discourse, which entails a high degree of acceptance of the challenges and objectification posed by others, is not the only and coherent
discourse present within the Muslim group. Another discourse present
was the talk about the injustice they faced. The discrimination they
faced when in Mindanao, the ransoms the American state had paid the
Philippine government for the arrests of alleged terrorists and the slow
trials they were now facing. Complaints about these conditions were
present at almost every visit with the Muslim group during my internship, but not during the fieldwork for this thesis. During the fieldwork,
the complaint was raised a few times, but not as often as before. Now, it
was supplemented by a more thorough explanation, making me reach a
better understanding of the cases of inmates. Before, the stories were
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generally limited to be about the unjust system, the government being
the real terrorists and the amount of time since the last hearing in each
case. Now I was presented with details about different cases and a more
nuanced presentation of the role of the Philippine and American government. The cause for this apparent change was, according to an inmate, that 17 Muslims had been released in January and that other cases
were now progressing. He told me this made him happy and gave him
hope, because maybe he would be the next in line. This inmate had not
had a lawyer for several years, but now he had written a request to Balay
for legal support, because he had regained hope. Most important to him
was the fact that there was hope to get out, but he was still unsatisfied
with the fact that getting out and getting justice was not necessarily the
same.
The discourses and practices among Muslims can be seen as leading to
generalisation of agency, as they do indeed have more privileges than
some of the other groups in the jail, e.g. they get more time for sunning
and their cells are opened earlier than the rest of the jail because of
praying time. However, agency does not only describe the actions that
are possible, but the subjects influence on the possible actions. As the
Muslim group have accepted these action possibilities as privileges, they
position themselves in a dependency relation to the management. This
way of temporary generalisation of agency is described by Holzkamp as
actually entailing self-hostility:
If I attempt to gain some freedom of action within given
power relations, in a certain sense I negate this freedom myself, since it is vouchsafed by the particular authorities and
can be rescinded at any time. In such situation, for the sake of
short-term security and satisfaction, I violate my general
long-term life interest. We call this contradiction "selfhostility". (2013, 24)
Thus, the Muslims can undermine their agency by creating dependency
to the management. The privileges extend the amount of possible actions for the Muslims, but not their influence over them, and therefore
create a false feeling of generalised agency. Following this line of
thought, the way to change this from self-hostility to actual extension of
agency, could be to unite for the right to for example freedom to practice
religion. If the communal Morning Prayer was recognised as a right
instead of privilege, the Muslims would gain influence over the opening
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of doors at 5am, and be less dependent on the warden to want to give
them this privilege. There exists a group within the jail that follow this
line of action: the leftists.
The leftist group fights for their rights within the jail and are not satisfied with privileges. They describe the jail as just a small society within
the bigger society, and fight the rotten system for the rights they are
entitled to. They highlight sunning as a privilege that only happened
occasionally before, which they made a right by fighting for it and which
they now get on daily basis.
Their discourse about rights emphasises fighting the rotten system, and
human rights is just one of the things the rotten system is preventing
them from obtaining. Contrary to their revolutionary struggle, which
aims to overthrow the system, the fight for human rights is sought
through the current system. When speaking about it, the leftists however still connect it to the fight against the rotten system, and thereby
emphasise the connection to their principles concerning social justice
instead of the inherent contradiction between fighting through and
against the system. When asked which human rights they are fighting
for the leftists referred to international human rights standards and
showed booklets they had the information from. These were mainly
booklets and pamphlets about the rights of detainees and prisoners,
published by the human rights commission in the Philippines and local
NGO’s. Further, they referred to rights that went beyond what could be
based on international standards, but which seemed recognised as rights
they were deprived of within their group, such as the right not to wear a
uniform. It was not clear how these rights had arisen, but there seemed
to be recognition of them within the leftist group, and these rights reflected issues that both leftist and other inmates were discontent with.
E.g. Muslims, leftists and gangs expressed frustrations about wearing
the yellow inmate t-shirt as uniform.
The discourse among the leftists offers a subjectification as someone
entitled to rights but also someone who has to fight for them. This discourse both imply a power within the subject who can fight for his right,
especially within the group of subjects who fight together through the
communist party. But, also a power held by the "rotten system" the subject has to fight.
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With regards to the complaint, uniting to fight for rights originally
looked like an ideal way to create generalised agency for the community.
However, problems arose in the process as the generalisation of agency
they sought was not wished for by the whole population, but their actions could cause consequences for everybody. Though their intention
behind might be to act on the behalf of the community, the actions of the
leftists instead turned out to be a way of seeking their own interests on
behalf of the whole community. This implies a different distribution of
power. Instead of the leftists, being representatives enacting the wish of
the community, they are enforcing their own principle of human rights
on the community. Thus, they fall into a the trap of imposing human
rights standards from the outside, which is one of the pitfalls of implementing human rights from a universalist standpoint without accounting for the local context (Hornberger 2007). Though their understanding of human rights is not identical to the international standards, their
conduct with imposing their standards on other groups still share similarities to Universalists imposing the international standards without
accounting for the particularities of the local context.
In the process, the leftists sought to include other groups in the jail, by
approaching their leaders, but the other groups declined and told them
not to push through with their complaint. However, the communist still
send the complaint, knowing that it could cause consequences for not
only themselves, but the whole jail. By knowingly acting against the
interests of the other groups in the jail to extend their own agency, the
actions of the leftists turned into restrictive agency in the form of selfhostility. No matter how honourable intentions lie behind their actions,
they disregard the subjective perspective of the rest of the inmates.
In section 4.1 Dreier argued that participation in few action contexts
entails the risk of overgeneralising knowledge from that context to other
contexts (2003). In section 5.1 it was shown that participation in the
leftist group could limit the possibilities to participate in other groups
and action contexts. Above it is shown how the leftists seem to disregard
the opposition to the complaint they face in the rest of the jail. If the
actions of the leftists are understood as grounded in their particular
subjective perspective, the explanation for the apparent disregard of the
opposition they face could be that they are overgeneralising knowledge
from their own action context onto the other groups in the jail. Thus,
they fail to see that the other inmates prioritise differently between
rights and privileges than the leftists. The point here is not whether the
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lack of interaction is created by differences in ideologies, religions or
gangs or by the iron bars and locked doors, but that the lack of interaction causes lack of understanding and in this particular episode turns an
attempt of generalisation of agency into self-hostility and conflict within
the jail.
Uniting for Rights and Privileges
Through the analysis in this section, it is clear that several understandings of rights and privileges exist within the jails and that the understandings differ among the different groups as a consequence of different stances and practices. It was demonstrated how under the restrictive
conditions of the jail, several lines of action could lead to self-hostility,
even the ones aimed at creating generalised agency. Further, the unpredictability of the outcome of actions was highlighted by the fact that the
group who seem to obtain generalised agency, is the group who settles
for protection of their current level of agency, through protection against
violations. The deciding factor for the outcome of the struggle for generalisation of agency did not seem to be what was fought for, but the way it
was fought for. Though the restrictive conditions of the jail made it hard
to create actual extension of action possibilities, the way inmates could
increase agency was by uniting.
5.1.4 Being Busy Doing Nothing
This section looks into how inmates handled being forced to wait for a
verdict for a prolonged period of time and the objectification and subjectification processes it entails. It takes its departure in how some inmates
subjectify themselves as busy to distance themselves from the objectification as inmates waiting for sentence. The section starts with a conceptualisation of waiting and continues to describe different ways inmates
relate to time through busyness, political struggle or waiting.
The focus on time arose due to a curious experience during a jail visit.
When I went to a jail to observe a normal day of two inmates, one of
them was too busy to see me because he had visitors; the other seemed
to not be doing much in his normal days, so I ended up hanging out and
talking with him. While we sat outside a cell another inmate stopped by.
When he decided to leave the following words were exchanged:
Inmate: This afternoon I will be unavailable.
Liv: What will you be doing?
Inmate: Nothing.
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Other inmate: Cooking?
Liv: I guess you need to get some rest for the eye.
Inmate: Yes, my doctor says I need to rest. (F5)
It turned out the inmate was unavailable because he was going to take a
nap, and when it was said out loud, it was as if we all realised he was not
busy but simply chose to be unavailable. The immediate reaction from
the other inmate and I was to protect the statement, to recognise that
when the inmate said he was unavailable, he was unavailable, no matter
what plans he did or did not have.
During the observations different discourses about coping with time
inside the jail appeared. And the contradiction in the discourse of the
Muslims, which spoke about busyness, and the actual lack of activity to
be occupied with, led to the phrase being busy doing nothing, which was
then explored in interviews and will be analysed in the following sections.
The theme of time is not unique to the Philippine context but has also
been found to be significant in jails in other countries (Kolind 2004;
Cohen and Taylor 2006) and in other places of confinement (Jefferson
2012).
Waiting as an Expression of Power
To conceptualise the inmates' coping with time, let us first look at the
way Schwartz conceptualise waiting as an expression of power relations
(1974). According to Schwartz waiting implies a power relation between
the one waiting and the person or institution he is waiting for. That the
Philippine state has kept the inmates waiting for years, is an example of
the state exerting power over the inmates. Schwartz analyses the waiting
involved in capitalist exchange of services, but the power relation he
describes goes beyond exchange of services to other types of waiting. A
similar power relation is implied for the inmates, except they cannot
chose if they want the service of the state. They are forced to wait for the
court to decide, making the objectification of the power relation even
stronger. However, many of the inmates avoid waiting, by constructing
different discourses about what they are doing. They are not waiting,
they are busy. Instead of roaming the halls and sleeping in their bed,
they chose to jog in the halls and communicate with family through illegal phones in their bed. The activity is to some degree similar, but it is
conceptualised differently as productive and meaningful. Thus, they are
not waiting.
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By creating alternatives to waiting, the inmates claim control over the
situation, they create agency (Holzkamp 2013). The fact that inmates
told me that even the control about when to sleep is important imply
how limited their agency is. Interestingly, an inmate who told me he was
free to choose when to sleep also told me that he was always woken by
the prayers of the Muslims, and that he was up at 6am, because that was
when they had water in his cell. Even his freedom to choose when to
sleep was limited.
Let us now turn to how the different groups of inmates use different
strategies to reclaim control and create agency, or simply refrain from it
and wait.
Busyness as Relational
The theme of being busy doing nothing arose within the Muslim group,
and within this group they often spoke of being busy:
So, for eight years here, almost like that, almost like busy, it’s
normal. But to me, most important here is the relationship.
Not like in other jails, everyday have a boxing... you know
quarrelling, but here maybe, it’s normal to have a quarrelling
for one minute two minutes... and then it’s settled by the
chairman, settled by the Ustadz here. So even though in one
home in one house outside, brother and sister maybe have a
quarrelling also or misunderstanding like that. (I2)
This statement was given by an inmate as answer to my question about
why he was so busy. The inmate emphasises the importance of relations
and the different kinds of busyness relations can cause. There is the
negative busyness due to conflicts, but he continued with a description
of the positive busyness relations could entail:
So the busy, we are talking: busy, always busy, even though
here inside the jail. Not busy problem but busy for, like me, if
I did not roaming around outside the cell, if I am always in
my bed... I am not sleeping, but I am talking to my family...
even though it is a small screen I see my son, I talk to my son
with the video call, like that, like this. Busy! (I2)
So there is a difference between keeping busy through relations and
relations making you busy through conflicts. The positive busyness is
the one you choose yourself. If this is related to the first example about
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being busy, the inmate did not tell me that he was busy; he told me that
he was choosing. The relation to me had the potential to make him busy.
If I demanded him to stay and talk, it might have enforced negative
busyness on him, but the fact that he got to choose when to talk to me
might have changed it to positive busyness. This was implied by the fact
that I was asked if I had an appointment when I arrived at his cell the
next time and by his eagerness to tell me his life story, which had replaced his lack of interest during my previous visit.
Busyness vs. Routine and Timing
The discourse about being busy was also present within the gangs,
though it was described in different terms. There was no distinction
between good and bad busyness, there was just busyness related to losing control due to disturbances by outside forces. When I asked an inmate why he was always so busy he told me it was about timing, I always
arrived just as he was in the middle of something:
It’s timing too, there are sometimes when you are really just
not doing anything for a few hours and then all of sudden it
just all hits at the same time and you just end up being pulled
in every direction, so it’s the timing to... You know, you got to
time it with the water, it’s like I got to do this right now, when
water is gonna come I’m not the only guy, and we got this
system, I'm gonna go first then he is gonna go and I gonna do
this, the water is gonna get cut and we still need to fill up water reserve and then you know, I’m gonna cook, and he is
gonna do that, and by the time everything is all done we will
all eat together and then you know, he is gonna do dishes and
I'm gonna hang the laundry... So it’s like that, you get this
system and all of sudden something random comes and you
are not expecting it and it’s just like oh shit you just ruined my
whole process, hold on, now I got to like reorganize everything, hold on, I’m busy! (I4)
The timing is important because the life of the inmate is physically
structured by many factors. The water is turned on at a certain time, he
cannot walk through the locked doors without permission, he has to be
present at the counting, etc. These are the forms of objectifying disciplinary power the inmate is subjected to, and he can only regain limited
control within the boundaries set up by the disciplinary power of the
management (Foucault 1977). This inmate has adapted his life to the
framework set up by the disciplinary power, by creating very particular
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routines. However, busyness still appears when he is subjected to unforeseen disturbances, e.g. if I paid an unannounced visit. When reflecting upon the routines the inmate explained:
It could be you know psychologically like it is the routine,
they have their routine down and anything like an outside
force that come, you know what I mean and breaks that routine, it’s like oh wait, I got to do this, this and this, I have an
order, and you are going in and screwing up my order, and I
am too busy for that right now, I got to do this, you know,
and it’s got to be done this way... You know people get obsessive compulsive about their routines and they don't want to
break it unless there is a natural break somewhere in there
and otherwise they are busy with whatever their routine is.
They got to do it now, it is their ritual, it is what keep them,
you know, going every day and provide them some kind of
balance it’s the one thing they can control, and to lose that is
chaotic, after losing everything else. (I4)
Busyness is here related to control over life conditions, to agency. By
creating the routine, the inmate regains control after losing everything
else, in other words he creates a new form of agency after losing the one
he had. However, the inmate describes how he even has to fight to maintain this routine within the jail and how he shows resistance to any
threat to his routine. If we integrate the understanding of waiting as a
power relation and agency as gaining control over life conditions (Foucault 1982; Holzkamp 2013; Schwartz 1974), we might say that the inmate is subjected to an objectifying power which forces him to wait and
takes away his control, and when fighting to regain control and agency
he also fight to regain power and change the objectification to subjectification.
Leftists: Continuing the Struggle or Waiting
The leftists in the same jail did not talk about being busy; they occupied
their time by continuing the struggle within the jail. This is typical
among political detainees, who often see their imprisonment as part of
the struggle (McEvoy 2001). Their activity was for example related to
the campaigns for amnesty for political prisoners and for human rights,
e.g. the complaint.
In another jail busyness was absent in the discourse of a leftist group.
Here existed a discourse almost opposite to the one about being busy. As
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one inmate put it, when I asked how they were affected by not knowing
when visitors and NGO’s came to visit:
We are patient, we stay and wait, we are inmates. (F1)
This inmate states it like a fact: Inmates wait. Interestingly, all accounts
of inmates waiting in my field notes stem from conversations with this
group of inmates. None of the inmates in the other jails talked about
waiting. This is remarkable, since they are all waiting for the judgement
of the court or for their sentence to be finished. But I only heard about
inmates waiting in this jail, and they were not waiting for judgement,
they were waiting for NGO’s or for delivery of materials for livelihood
activities.
Beyond noting that waiting was a quality of an inmates' life, they did not
speak about waiting often or elaborate on the topic. There was however
one other important characteristic of their discourse about time: They
never spoke of being busy.15 They mentioned waiting for people and
materials from the outside, the things that in other discourses could
have been described as outside forces making inmates losing control,
causing stress and busyness, and they mentioned conflicts between inmates, similar to the ones described as absent among Muslims and present among gangs in the other jail. However the conflicts were not conceptualised as sources of busyness. Rather they were described as
caused by the hot climate in the jail and by inmates with hot tempers.
One inmate described for me how he had to work hard to control his hot
temper, while another inmate told me how the community, led by the
chairmen, would intervene when conflicts arose.
These inmates accepted the objectifying disciplinary power by accepting
to be inmates who wait and the loss of agency this implies. This was not
a general characteristic for these inmates, they chose to fight other
struggles e.g. for rights (Cf. 5.1.3) or for the position as political detainees (cf. 5.2.2).
Time and Confinement
If subjects are faced with conditions where generalisation of agency is
not possible, the best way to act might be to fight to maintain the agency
I only visited the jail two times during my fieldwork, so the data only represent
a small glimpse into the daily life of these inmates. However, that I did not hear
about busyness during these two visits is in stark contrast to the Muslims, who
told about busyness at every visit.
15
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one still possesses. If agency is very limited, it can be important for the
individual to hold on to every bit of agency, even if that means putting
greater importance to the small choices one has, such as whether to
sleep and how to fill out the hours in the jail (Dreier 2003). Thus, the
choices of inmates might be so limited by physical conditions and rules,
that the choices they have left are how to relate to these conditions.
The inmates used different tactics to handle the restrictions put on their
agency in relation to time. One leftist group chose to continue the political struggle inside the jail, showing resistance to the objectifying power
they faced. The Muslims accepted the restrictive conditions they were
faced with, but showed resistance by creating a discourse and practices
about being busy. The discourse of busyness was also present within the
gangs, though they perceived busyness in a more negative way, as something occurring when routines were disturbed, when even the low level
of agency they had maintained was threatened. The other group of leftists chose to accept the objectification and the restriction put on their
agency as they accepted to be waiting inmates. They fought for other
kinds of agency instead.
The fact that all groups had a strategy to handle the temporal restrictions of confinement suggests that this might be a general issue for inmates. Furthermore, through ethnographic studies in other sites of confinement, Jefferson similarly found the way people deal with time in
confinement to be of importance. He describes the different nature of
time under confinement as:
Time itself confines not through a limit or a fixed sentence but
paradoxically through the lack of a limit. (2012, 15)
Thus, time even reach beyond the walls of jails into other sites of confinement. Within present study it was shown how time is one of the objectifying mechanisms inmates deal with; how it is characteristic of the
objectifying conditions of confinement
5.2 Relations to the Outside
Beyond relations between inmates, the inmates also participate in relations to other actors, which entail subjectification. Common for these
actors are that they are outsiders to some degree, some are visitors,
some are staff but they all have access to the outside of the jail. In this
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section the relations inmates have to jail management and Balay are
analysed. The management is of great importance because all inmates
are related to it in some way. The relation to Balay is only important to a
minority within the jails, the inmates who are clients of Balay, but is
relevant for all inmates who participated in this study.
5.2.1 Jail Management: Dynamic Security
This section will analyse the subjectification at stake in the relation between the jail management and the inmates. In this context management will be understood as including: the warden, administrative staff,
jail guards and physical conditions of the jails (which are understood as
under the control of the management, because the management has the
power to change them).
In the relation between inmates and management there is some very
potent subjectification processes at stake. The subjectification within
this relation stands out as more potent because of the intense power
differences and the objectification that is at stake for the inmates who
are defined as inmates for years, while insisting on being innocent citizens (Jefferson 2012).
When inmates are sent to the high security jail, they are categorised as
being high risk. This is an objectification imposed on them by the system
ascribing them to this particular jail. As they live inside the jail and
through the interaction with management, this label however becomes
integrated in the way they see themselves, it becomes something they
have to relate to through the subjectification processes at stake in the
relation to for example the management.
The high security jail is placed within a police camp, together with two
other jails. Its architecture compliments the high security status through
several layers of walls and gates surrounding the jail building. The building itself is only closed at the sides, not at the ends, allowing you to look
through the building, or allowing easy extraction of hostages. The building is under surveillance of security cameras, with the screens conveniently placed in sight of the warden in the room next to his office. From
his office he can also overlook the guards at the gate through one way
looking glass, that makes his office an artificial panopticon, from which
he can overlook the entire jail (Foucault 1977). Thus the physical appearance of the jail fits the categorisation of inmates as high risk. It sets
up a framework that can contribute to the disciplining one would expect
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the state to want to submit "deviant criminals" to. At first glance you
might think this is what happens in the jail, but when engaging in the
everyday life of the jail, it becomes clear that what happens in the relation between management and inmates is very different from just the
pure disciplining of inmates objectified as deviant criminals.
The relation to the management depends a lot on the warden. Wardens
often change positions within the Philippine jail system, since the BJMP
regularly transfer personnel between jails to prevent corruption. Because of these transfers, a lot of inmates have been in the jail for longer
time than the warden, and a lot of them have experienced other wardens
in the local jails they were detained in before being transferred to the
high security jail. Within the high security jail, the current warden was
seen as one of the good wardens, together with only one other warden
that had been managing the jail within the last decade.
The previous warden focused on security. He did not allow the privileges
inmates now enjoyed, he kept the inmates on lockdown for more hours,
and he did not allow the Muslims to pray together in the morning. The
inmates described him as afraid; afraid of them and afraid of the people
he reported to. They said he did not dare to go inside the jail before the
cells were locked and he did not dare say no to either them or his higher
ups. This let to unfortunate situations, where he said yes to requests of
inmates, but later withdrew his accept, when people from the national
headquarters told him to do so. The current warden appears as a contrast to this in many ways, especially he appears to have closer relations
to the inmates. There is a tendency in his behaviour towards a decrease
of focus on the security risk of inmates and towards recognising their
needs. This makes the inner parts of the jail appear less security focused
than most of the other jails I visited. This development in management
is similar to the approach of dynamic security. The main philosophy
behind dynamic security is to create security through closer relation
between staff and inmates instead of through coercive methods and to
treat inmates in a more humane manner. It is assumed that closer relations between staff and inmates creates a space for inmates to tell staff
what is happening in the jail, thereby warning them of potential risks as
they arise (Bennett 2007; Legget and Hirons 2007). This corresponds
with the wardens increased level of interaction with the inmates and the
creation of a chairman structure, through which inmates can report
their complaints. Interestingly, the level of interaction between guards
and inmates had not increased correspondingly. Most of the time, the
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guards were outside the jail, and for errands inside the jail they send
trustees if possible. Thus, though the approach of the warden has shifted
towards dynamic security and recognition of inmates as subjects, the
approach was not implemented throughout the jail.
The closer relations were seen in connection to the conflict about the
complaint letter. According to Balay’s staff, the warden was upset when
he heard about the complaint after it had already been send. His first
concern was that he was not contacted before it was send. Initially, I was
told that his concern was that they did not go through the weekly chairman meeting. Later it appeared like the warden was disappointed to
have been let down by a good friend among the leftists. At a meeting
with the warden I wrote the following about his presentation of the relationship to this particular inmate:
He told us about his disappointment with [inmate]. Says that
before he went to their cell every evening, he even let them
give him massage - and adds: "You could even break my
neck", and demonstrates with his hands how you could break
the neck when standing behind him to do a massage. (F10)
This example shows the versatile character of the relation between the
warden and the inmates. Within few moments, the warden shared with
me that he was disappointed with this inmate, who he trusted like a
friend, and that there is a risk in interactions with a person like this.
From this story we cannot determine if the risk of being with this inmate
is connected to him being an inmate or to his connection to the leftist
group. The versatile character of the relation does not only appear in the
description by the warden, but also in the fact that Balay’s staff described it as a close friendship. The only part of this relation that was
mentioned when I talked to the leftists was that the warden visited them
before and that he did no longer do so. One thing was however common
for the different descriptions of the relation, they all told the story of the
warden as a regular visitor in the cell of the leftist before. The agreement
about the warden’s regular visits and the informal interactions suggest
that the warden offered to recognise the inmates to be more than just
inmates. By actually participating with the inmates and taking time to
listen to not just formal complaints, but also the conversation that occurs at a random visit, he gives the inmates possibility to present themselves as more than inmates with needs and complaints, and by listening
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to their stories at his repeated visits, it is likely that he has been recognising their alternative representations of them self.
The visits also seem to have had a consequence to how the leftist subjectify the warden, both for the subject positions they offer him and for
their perception of him. Though the complaint can be seen as an attack
on his management, the leftists repeatedly emphasised that it was an
attack on the system, not on the person, and that they would like to reestablish dialogue with the warden. Thus, they actually perceived his
person as separate from the system. The leftists repeated that this was
not an attack on his person, though the warden told me that the attack
could have personal effects for him, as complaints from his jails could
lead to his dismissal. Though he sought the closer relations, where inmates was offered recognition as not only inmates, but as persons, as
not only objects of discipline but as subjects in a relation, he did not
agree with the way the leftists conceived his person as separated from
his position as warden. That is, he offers them to be recognised as more
than their position as inmates, while he sticks with his position as warden.
5.2.2 Subjectification in the Relation with Balay
The original aim of this thesis was to explore subjectification processes
in the relation between Balay and inmates. During the fieldwork it became clear that the subjectification in this relation was only a small part
of the subjectification the inmates were part of. Therefore the topic of
the thesis was expanded to study other significant relations in the everyday life of the inmates. For the inmates who participated in this study,
the subjectification in the relation to Balay was however still significant
and it will therefore be analysed in this section through a presentation of
the different labels used to describe clients in Balay’s discourse.
Political Detainees
When talking about their partners the Balay’s staffs define them all under the label of political detainees.16 However, this category includes
different kinds of political detainees. As showed before (cf. 5.1.1) the
inmates of the high security jail were divided into two major groups:
This analysis is concerned with the local understandings and practices about
the term political detainees used by the inmates and Balay. It is outside the
scope of this thesis to include other definitions such as the one of the state and
of different criminologists, for a discussion of different ways to define political
detainees see McEwoy (2001).
16
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Muslims and leftists. These two groups also exist in other jails and prisons Balay work in and represent the two major groups Balay are engaged with.
In the Muslim group, where coherence of the group was emphasised, the
label as political detainees challenged this coherence. Within the group
inmates had different relations to MILF, Abu Sayyaf or neither of them.
These connections were rarely spoken about during the research, but
seemed to appear in the conversations between Balay and clients. That
is, the connection to MILF or not having a relation to the groups was
something you could talk about. Relations to Abu Sayyaf were however
not talked about. One inmate told us he had reported to another researcher:
Abu Sayyaf is just one name, it is a code name - Abu means
father, Sayyaf means soul, father’s soul, it is the code name of
only one man. If I say I am not a terrorist you would not believe. We are not terrorist, not officer, we are Muslim. (F5)
Among the Muslims I spoke with Abu Sayyaf was a myth (cf. 2.1.1). They
told me no Abu Sayyaf members lived among them. However, some
inmates have officially admitted to be members of Abu Sayyaf. When we
asked the gangs, the leftists, the management and Balay, they all came
with different guesses of how many Abu Sayyaf members lived among
the Muslims. Officially nobody knows how many, until the court decides. However, everybody besides the Muslim assumed that some of
them are Abu Sayyaf (Arguillas 2013).
For Balay, it should be noted, that the clients were assumed not to be
members of Abu Sayyaf. It was accepted that some were affiliated with
MILF, but not Abu Sayyaf. What defines the Muslims as political detainees for Balay is the fact that they have been arrested in connection with
the fight for independence and that they are assumed to be innocent or
have participated in the struggle only through acceptable means. While
the terrorism of Abu Sayyaf is deemed as unacceptable means, participation in MILF, which is a politically recognised organisation, is deemed
acceptable.
While Balay offers the Muslims to define themselves as political detainees, the Muslims rarely use the term themselves. Sometimes it is used to
emphasise the similarities between Muslims and leftists, sometimes it
refers to clients of Balay, sometimes to all Muslims. Sometimes the Mus-
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lim inmates say they are political, sometimes they say they are not. One
Muslim inmate offered us this very pragmatic explanation:
To be a political inmate is to get help from the NGO’s, to have
the possibility for amnesty. (I3)
This particular inmate never told me about being affiliated to any political group. On the contrary, he told of having worked for the local government before he was arrested. For this inmate, a broad definition of
political inmate seemed to apply. He was political because he was part of
the Muslims who were discriminated against during the conflict and
because he was accused to be part of the conflict.
The case is quite different for the leftists. They define themselves as
political detainees, even the ones not affiliated with Balay, and their
groups outside the jails are part of a national campaign to free all political prisoners (“Free All Political Prisoners” 2013). During the interview
in the high security jail, the word political detainee was repeated in almost every statement and in conversations with leftist inmates in other
jails I noticed how they could light up when the conversation fell on
their political struggle:
I noticed that this conversation has lid a spark in his eyes,
and that all of the partners now look more enthusiastic... It is
like his whole body is telling the story; his arms are waving
around as he shows us what he is telling. (F7)
Through his body language this inmate demonstrated how political detainee was not just a label put on him for pragmatic purposes, it was
something he was. He spoke of it; he felt it and he enacted it. Thus while
the Muslims accepted the label as political detainees of pragmatic reasons, the leftist used the label themselves and were more political than
Balay could ever be.
Leftist Comrades
Some categories were used for the specific groups. This applied to the
category of comrade. A comrade was something the leftists had and a
word that was sometimes used by Balay’s staff. The word comrade does
not only imply something about the one who is labelled as a comrade,
but also the person who is labelling him so. Comrade implies the relation between two leftists, and if using it consistently, one positions oneself as agreeing with the principles of the leftist movement. However,
79
the official policy of Balay does not support affiliation with the revolutionary struggle and the term is only used by some staff and not consistently but in combination with other terms such as political detainees
and partners. The inconsistency in use suggests that the affiliation is
only to some of the values and in some of the cases the leftists fight for,
and the variance in use by different staff suggest that the affiliation is on
a personal level and not part of the policy of Balay.
I never heard inmates use the phrase comrade when speaking about
Balay. Some inmates talked about Balay as formal, and called them service provider or NGO. For others the Balay’s staffs were described as
being "like family, we have been here for four years, Balay never
stopped" (F1). This implies a closer relation than the formal relation to a
service provider, a relation one can trust. The jail, in which the inmates
talked about Balay as family, was visited rarer than the jail in which they
were termed as service provider. Thus, the frequency of visits did not
determine the proximity of the relationship. There was however another
difference; in the jail where Balay was called family, the group of political detainees was small, only four versus around fifty in the other jail.
This contributed to a family like atmosphere during the visits of Balay in
the one jail, where it was more as a service provider in the jail were Balay had to get to many partners during every visit. This is an example of
how a lot of factors can play a role in subjectification processes. These
groups were offered the same attitude by social workers but the number
of political detainees within the jails affected the visits.
Muslim Families
Family was a frequent word in conversations between Balay and Muslim
inmates. Balay’s staff often started conversations by asking about the
inmate’s family. Family seemed of great importance to the Muslims, a
fact that both they and Balay was aware of. Thus, one Muslim inmate
kept repeating for me, as if it was his most important message for my
research:
The diamond in the jail is the visitor. You can sleep together
with your wife; that is diamond. (F5)
Because, like I said, before: the only diamond here in jail, is
our family. (I2)
The inmate who used the term diamond of the jail told us that this was
his message to the outside; this was what was most important for him.
80
By wanting the outside to know he shows signs of wanting to move from
the current state were sleeping with his wife inside the jail is a privilege
dependent on the warden, to a state where it is generally recognised that
family visits are important for inmates. In this way he actually pushes
for a generalisation of agency in a form that before seemed absent.
Though he wants to spread the knowledge about importance of family in
a subtle way, compared to the leftists’ demands for rights, the wish to
spread this knowledge still shows a wish for gaining the right to family
visits.
The importance of the family visits also shows that the pseudo family
inside the jail cannot replace real family. The real family is of grave importance to the Muslims and this is recognised by Balay when they initiate their conversations by asking about family, thus recognising the
inmates in the subject position of fathers, brothers and sons.
Partner Beneficiaries
Clients of Balay are not called clients but partner beneficiaries. Partner
beneficiaries is the official term but most of the time it is shortened to
partner. What is implied when talking about partners instead of clients
is that the inmates are not just clients who seek Balay for a service. Partners are seen as having influence and therefore Balay’s work also differ
across the different jails. E.g. the partners in the high security jail had
recently asked Balay to change the content of the food assistance. Before
they received a small amount of cash and a bag of groceries, the partners
had now requested as smaller amount of groceries and a bigger amount
of cash. However, the partners could only affect the content of the service, not the amount or frequency of the money, as they were still in the
role of beneficiaries. What makes this a benefactor relation is not that
one participant in the partnership sets limits, as even partnerships are
power relations, but that the relationship is one way. The benefactor is
Balay, who offer services and the beneficiary is the partners, who receive.
The difference between partnership and benefactor relation can be seen
as a difference between subjectification and objectification and it represent a dilemma not only in Balay’s work, but in social work in general
(Philp 1979). And when Balay emphasise the partnership over the benefactor relationship, they chose to emphasise the subjectifying relation
rather than the objectifying. This emphasis is similar to what Nissen
terms antimethod of social work (2003). In his description of anti-
81
method of social work Nissen presents the work of Wild Learning,
where social workers consciously distanced themselves from classic
social work methods and sought new ways to help clients. This approach
was a reaction to the objectifying treatment seen among public social
workers and an attempt to make social work revolve around the client.
According to Nissen, the dilemma of all social work is that all generalisations of methods entail a degree of objectification of clients. Thus, social
work entails a contradiction between the need for generalisation of
methods and the need to encounter clients as subjects rather than objects. This need to encounter clients as subjects is what separates social
work from other disciplines:
Social work must always reconstitute itself by a precarious
distinction from forms of knowledge that seem to objectify
without interpellating: from psychiatry, criminology, and so
forth, in repeated bifurcations (Cohen 1985) between what
could be termed "authentic" social work as the hailing of subjects, and "inauthentic" social work (the "other" of social
work) as the management of nonsubjects (in prisons, secluded institutions etc.). (Nissen 2003, 342)
Thus, social work in jails constantly represent this bifurcation between
authentic social work as hailing of subjects and the management of nonsubjects in the jail. This sets Balay’s approach apart from other service
providers such as the International Committee of Red Cross (ICRC) and
Medical Action Group (MAG), who both focus on delivering needed
services that do not entail haling of subjects. ICRC have standardised
methods to assess what kind of help inmates can get, e.g. you can get
financial support for one visitor if you live up to certain economic standards. MAG focuses on providing medical support and document torture. They support a client group similar to Balays, but they do not conduct regular visits in jails, rather they tend to jails in the whole country,
when torture or medical needs are reported. Both organisations offer
inmates needed support, but when analysed through the perspective of
subjectification, they do not offer the inmates an alternative to the objectifying treatment they experience in the jail.
Balay on the other hand, chose to apply their resources differently. They
focus on few jails, but visit more often. They prioritise stronger relations
to their partners, but this also limits them to tend to fewer inmates.
They distance themselves from clinical language and refer to clients as
82
partners, to emphasise the inmates' influence in the relation between
Balay and partners.
They do however not avoid any form of objectification in the relation.
Objectifying processes are seen when staff administers tools to newly
accepted clients. The inmates have to go through the Harvard Trauma
Questionnaire, WHO5 and Hopkins Depression and Anxiety tests. These
tests help Balay assess the amount of symptoms the partners are experiencing and serve as documentation for donors. This is an example of
how Balay has to live up to certain objectifying standards to justify their
work, though the actual work in the jails has a different character.
5.3 Subjectification in Jail
While the sections above have taken us deeper into the jail and tried to
create an understanding of subjectification in this particular context,
this section marks the start of our exit from the jail. Our exit will begin
with some reflexions on what we learned through this analysis.
Through the analysis it has become clear that subjectification practices
showed both similarities and differences between the groups. The first
difference that appeared was that the actions of the Muslims did not
lead them towards generalisation of agency in the classic critical psychological sense, but instead showed signs of self-hostility (Holzkamp 2013;
Holzkamp 1985). However, the Muslims did not cope any worse; they
seemed to have levels of wellbeing similar to other groups in the jail, 17
which does not correspond with either self-hostile behaviour or the restriction of agency. On the other hand, the leftists united and fought to
extend their action possibilities. But what seemed to be the perfect recipe for generalisation of agency ended up as a failed attempt to improve
their rights and strained relations to the rest of the jail, possibly because
of the core-blindness they had since their participation was limited to
few action contexts (Dreier 2003).
This contradiction could be seen as a lack of explanatory potential of
Critical Psychology as a subject science. However, when objectifications
of the subject were allowed, as interpellation and care of the self (Nissen
2009b; Foucault 1982), this potential arose. These contributions made it
Their wellbeing has not been measured. It is the assessment of Balay's staff
and I, based on dialogue with the inmates from both groups, that the Muslims
have at least a similar level of wellbeing as the leftists.
17
83
possible to understand the actions of the Muslims not as self-hostility
but as care of the self. While the leftists engaged in struggles for rights to
obtain generalisation of agency by extending their action possibilities,
the Muslims engaged in an inward struggle, where they took over power
of their selves and participated in the ritual prayer, which manifested
the commonality of this care of the self. They generalise agency by uniting, but they do not use it to fight the authorities within the jail.
While it proved to be useful to see subjects as productive, the importance of seeing subjects as affected by conditions was also emphasised.
As Foucault argued, a subject is subject to someone or something (1982,
781), and it is important to recognise this aspect of power and objectification to fully understand subjects.
84
85
86
Part IV
Confinement and
Subjectification
6. Conclusion
Now at the exit of the jail, it is time to look at what we take with us. We
have gotten a glimpse of the lives in Philippine jails and of the work of
Balay. We have seen a practice research project unfold, using ethnographic methods to explore a psychological phenomenon. An analytical
framework has been developed by combining chosen parts of Critical
Psychology with Foucault’s work on objectification and care of the self.
The analytical framework has been applied to data to explore the groups
in the jail; how they coped with rights and privileges and with waiting
for a verdict; and, how they related to other actors such as the management and Balay.
Generally the analysis has led to the conclusion that the relations between inmates are key to maintain a sense of subjectivity and agency
while under the objectifying power of a jail. More specifically the analysis has led to the following answers to the two research questions:
1. How are inmates objectified and subjectified within
Philippine jails?
It turned out that the inmates both faced classic objectification by the
disciplinary power of the jails, while at the same time being offered subjectification, e.g. through their interactions with other inmates and with
the management.
Groups played a major part in subjectification processes within the jail.
The different groups had different ways to cope with life in jail and faced
different conditions within the jail. The conditions an inmate would be
offered thus to a large degree depended on the group he chose to affiliate
himself with. For his subjectification, groups entailed the possibility to
choose to step into other subject positions than just being an inmate.
The theoretical framework, understanding subjectification as entailing
objectification as part of the process, however emphasises that objectifi-
88
cation is also present in the groups. Thus, the fact that inmates can
chose which positions they want to step into is the key difference between the subjectification in groups and objectification as inmates. The
inmates related differently to the objectification as inmates. Some
stayed in the objectifying relation, by denying their crime or arguing that
their crime should not be illegal, while others accepted the objectification, took it on and made it a subjectification by becoming inmates in
their own particular way.
In the relation to the jail management objectification was dominating, as
would be expected, but subjectification was also present when the warden entered in relations with the inmates that allowed for mutual recognition. When analysed as subjectification, the mutual recognition allowed by a dynamic approach to security has the potential to create
more humane spaces of confinement, though it can never totally remove
the objectification inherent in the disciplinary power of a jail.
In the relation to Balay, inmates got the chance to enter a relation which
was generally characterised by giving the inmates a greater amount of
influence and power than in the relations offered to them by the jail
management and the justice system. Objectifying treatment was however still present, e.g. when Balay defined their clients in certain ways to
live up to donor standards, and Balay could not follow all wishes of their
clients, because they were limited by funds and by their status as a politically neutral organisation. The relation had the potential to help inmates generalise agency by creating further action possibilities, e.g.
through creation of livelihood activities and offering healthcare. Generalisation of agency by uniting however seemed to happen more within
the jail and was not dependent on the relation to Balay.
2. How do inmates cope with the intense restrictions on
their agency set up by the jail?
Through the analysis we saw different examples of how inmates cope
with restrictions put on their agency because of incarceration. Different
aspects of incarceration had different effects on their agency, and led to
different strategies among the groups in the jails. Specifically we saw
how inmates dealt in different ways with the prolonged periods of waiting for a verdict, without knowing when the waiting would be over. The
different groups chose to handle the objectification as inmates waiting in
different ways. The groups in the high security jail actively fought to
89
regain some agency in this respect, by altering their way of relating to
time, by refusing to wait and instead be busy or continue the political
struggle. However, both among Muslims and gangs there was also talk
about how even the agency they were able to maintain was under attack.
Either by the strain it could put on you to be confined with the same
group of people for a prolonged period, forcing you to deal with negative
sides within the relations in the jail; or by disturbances to the routines
they had managed to structure their everyday around. In a provincial
jail, the leftist inmates had accepted the subjectification as inmates who
wait, and the loss of agency this entailed. However, this did not seem to
reflect a general acceptance of the loss of agency the objectifying conditions could lead to, rather the tactics of this group was to fight for agency
in other respects such as by creating a strong position as political detainees within the power structures of the jail.
Rights and privileges was one of the ways inmates coped through resistance to the restrictions put on their agency. This resistance was expressed in very differing ways. The Muslims, at first glance seemed to
express self-hostility, as they showed acceptance of the rules of the jail
and positioned themselves as dependent on the warden. But when getting closer to an understanding of their subjective perspective, it appears
that they are taking part in another form of subjectification within the
jail. They are performing care of the self through practice of Islam and
use the ritual of prayer to unite as one. By uniting, they are creating
generalised agency, which can explain the high level of wellbeing they
showed, even though there were few examples of them fighting to generalise agency through extending action possibilities within the jail.
Extending action possibilities was exactly the tactic used by the leftists
within the high security jail. When they won their struggles to extend
action possibilities for them and the other inmates, it led them to increased agency through the extension of action possibilities and uniting
with others who gained the rights they had fought for, as was the case in
the example of sunning. When they lost the struggle it however not only
hindered them from gaining what they fought for but also led to isolation within the jail, because they did not unite with others about the
rights they fought for and the way they did it, as was seen in relation to
the food issue.
The leftist group in another jail showed a different approach. Their tactic was defensive, and their teachings of other inmates about human
90
rights violations was aimed at hindering violations and did not include a
fight to gain rights, as in the other jail. Nevertheless, their tactic led
them to unite with other inmates about a common third: survival in the
jail and avoiding more human rights violations. By uniting in this way,
their defensive strategy revealed a potential to generalise agency.
The outcome of the different tactics for the actual conditions in the jail
seemed unpredictable. The leftists who fought for their rights sometimes
won their battles and sometimes lost and ended in a situation even
worse than before; and the Muslims chose not to fight, and ended with
more privileges, because the warden described them as cooperative. As
for the subjectification however, the inmates had the ability to resist the
objectification of the jail within the limits of the disciplinary power, by
choosing to relate differently to it, by performing care of the self and by
uniting with other inmates.
Confinement and Subjectification
In line with the general conclusion that relations between inmates are
key to maintain agency and thus wellbeing, this thesis argue that relations among inmates are the key to more humane jails. Within the local
context of the study, it is therefore important that the inmates get the
possibility to interact. However, in the jails, inmates are often met by
doors that are locked in the name of security. On the one hand, it is important to recognise the need for security, as this was for example what
protected the leftists in the high security jail from attacks from the
gangs. On the other hand, this thesis argues that open doors and interaction can be tools to create a more humane jail. Therefore this thesis
urges the jail managements in the Philippines to think twice whenever
they lock or open a door; when does security call for a door to be locked
and when can the door be left open? Through the analysis of the conflict
about the complaint in the high security jail, it was shown how lack of
recognition of the subjectivity of other groups was present among the
group who send the complaint. This leaves us with the question: would
the complaint have been send if the groups interacted more within this
jail?
On the basis of this study it has not been possible to conclude, whether
the findings reflect a particular local context or if some of them reflect
general issues for the understanding of subjectivity. Because the study
was conducted within jails the inmates were facing extreme restrictions
on their agency, in the form of a disciplinary power outside the subject.
91
It would be interesting to explore the influence of power residing outside
the subject in other sites of confinement, and how this can contribute to
the understanding of agency in everyday life of people who are not confined. Are there for example similarities between the agency of subjects
who face different restrictions, e.g. between a subject restricted by a
Philippine jail or a Danish jail or maybe even a subject that is not restricted by a disciplinary power, but by other forces such as poverty or
war? And do these similarities even reach into the everyday of people
who are not subjected to such extreme situations, but only to the restrictions involved in everyday life? The questions raised by this study call
for more research on the relation between confinement and subjectification.
92
93
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Wacquant, Loïc. 2002. “The Curious Eclipse of Prison Ethnography.”
Ethnography 3 (4): 371–397.
Walmsley,
Roy.
2009.
“World
Prison
Population
http://www.prisonstudies.org/info/downloads/wppl8th_41.pdf.
List.”
Welch, Michael. 2010. “Pastoral Power as Penal Resistance Foucault and
the Groupe d’Information Sur Les Prisons.” Punishment & Society 12 (1) (January 1): 47–63. doi:10.1177/1462474509349086.
Wilson, Richard A. 1997. Human Rights, Culture and Context: Anthropological Perspectives. London: Pluto Press.
Woodward, Roland. 2007. “Symbiosis: Therapeutic Communities Within Non-therapeutic Community Organizations.” In Dynamic Security the Democratic Therapeutic Community in Prison, edited by Michael Parker, 222–231.
Yuen, Felice. 2011. “Embracing Emotionality: Clothing My ‘Naked
Truths’.” Critical Criminology 19 (1): 75–88.
99
Appendices
Appendix 1: Example of an Interview Guide
Used during interview with leftist inmates
-
Short introductions: Could you make a short introduction of
yourself? Of course we already know something about you from
our time with Balay and here in [name of jail], but what you believe we should know about you?
-
How would a normal day inside [name of jail]be for you?
-
What kind of privileges do you have? (are they the ones you need?
do you use them? Sunning, do you get it? How often?)
-
What do you eat? How do you prepare your food?
-
Visitors - how often do you get visitors? Who are your visitors?
-
How would you describe being a political detainee?
-
How is the life of a political detainee different from the life of
other detainees?
-
Do you think the other inmates look at you differently because
you are related to Balay?
-
How would you describe your relation to Balay? In what way does
Balay help you?
-
How would you describe you relation to the other inmates? Muslims? to the third floor? To Chinese?
-
How would you describe your relation to the warden and the
guards?
-
Balay speaks of your group as the Christian partners in [name of
jail], why do you think that is? How do you feel about being called
the Christian partners?
-
What are your values? How are they different from the ones you
have outside?
100
Specifically for inmate 2:
-
How would you describe the difference between being here as
someone part of the struggle, or as someone randomly picked up,
like [name of inmate]?
-
Are you prepared during your training, to handle being in jail?
-
Do you see a difference between how the low-ranking and highranking political detainees handle being jail?
Specifically for inmate 2:
-
Do you think your experience of being imprisoned is different because of your situation? How? (Not being part of a Communist
group)
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Appendix 2: List of Jail Visits and Data
Field notes (F) interview transcriptions (I) and email correspondence (E).
List of the jail visits I participated in during the fieldwork; participants
in every visit; purpose of the visits; and codes for data collected during
the visits. The visits to the high security jail are all from the same jail,
while the visits to provincial jails stem from two different jails. No
names or dates are given, to protect the confidentiality of the participants in the study. During all visits a set of field notes was drafted, while
transcriptions were made for the four interviews in the high security jail
that were recorded. Two improvised interviews were conducted in the
provincial jails, but these are in the field notes from the respective visits
since they were not recorded.
1. Visit to provincial jail with a social worker from Balay.
Purpose of visit: Providing update on future services from Balay,
discussing the situation with the therapeutic community in the
jail.
Data: F1
2. Visit to high security jail with a social worker from Balay and a
doctor.
Purpose of visit: Providing medical assistance for partners.
Data: F2
3. Visit to high security jail with a social worker and a researcher
from Balay and Jacob Pedersen.
Purpose of visit: Providing quarterly food assistance for inmates.
Data: F3
4. Visit to maximum security prison with a social worker and a researcher from Balay and Jacob Pedersen.
Purpose of visit: Providing quarterly food assistance for inmates.
Data: F4
5. Visit to high security jail with Jacob Pedersen.
Purpose of visit: Observation with an inmate.
Data: F5
102
6. Visit to provincial jail with social worker from Balay and Jacob
Pedersen.
Purpose of visit: Providing quarterly food assistance.
Data: F6
7. Visit to provincial jail and office of the regional commission on
human rights with social worker and deputy director from Balay
and Jacob Pedersen.
Purpose of visit: Providing quarterly food assistance and paying a
courtesy visit to the regional human rights commission.
Data: F7
8. Visit to high security jail with Jacob Pedersen.
Purpose of visit: Conducting interview with leftist inmates.
Data: F8, I1
9. Visit to high security jail with Jacob Pedersen.
Purpose of visit: Conducting interview with a Muslim inmate.
Data: F9, I2
10. Visit to high security jail with Jacob Pedersen.
Purpose of visit: Conducting interview with one Muslim inmate
and one inmate from the gangs.
Data: F10, I3, I4
11. Email correspondence with a staff of Balay: E1
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Appendix 3: Sample of Field Notes
Sample of field notes from a visit with Balay, the original set of
field notes was 12 pages
We were supposed to leave at 8am, but A send me a text this morning
that we would bring Doc and he had to have a consultation before we
left, so we wouldn't leave before 9.30. I went to the office shortly after 8
anyway to write my field notes from yesterday. A arrived around 8.30
and after a short while she received a text from the Doc saying that he
wouldn't be here before 10. We left the office around 10.30. Doc came in
his private car, and was driving us to the jail...
I notice there is a sticker in the front window of the car, stating that he is
a MD. There is also a cross, a clock that isn't on time and a small plastic
apple...
A comments the sticker in Doc's window. Doc tells that there is rules
about who can drive on the road for wholly week. On Monday it is only
cars with number plates starting with one and two, Tuesday, three and
four and so on. But since Doc has the MD sticker, he can drive whenever
he likes. These rules sound very strange to me, in a very Filipino way.
At the outer gates we are normally asked about who we are, even when
driving in the Balay car. This time we just drive right through the gate, I
guess the sticker was more important than I thought.
We reach the jail around 1pm. At the entrance we pass by the queue of
waiting visitors, only one man and a lot of women in Muslim clothes, a
few women in pants and t-shirts as well. At the gate they hand over their
ID and get a number in the queue. We handover over ID cards and get
straight in. I thought I had forgot my notebook in the car, so I had to go
out to look for it, and went back in again, without any ID, they allowed
this. A female guard came to search us. She seemed kind of threatening
at first, speaking in a hard tone, asking me to step into the little room
where they do the search. Inside the room she changed her tone and
seemed more friendly, even put on a fan so it wouldn't be too hot. She
searched more thoroughly than they usually do, but still only on the
outside of my legs, so not thoroughly enough to find anything if I wanted
to hide it....
As we proceed to the jail we go to the second floor inside a cell, that used
to be a visiting area, now there is a bed and some training equipment. At
104
our way in I catch a glimpse of some of the partners, who wave happily
and I smile and wave back. In the room there is a bench for lying on
when you lift weights and then some weights made out of cement, iron
rods and plastic containers. Doc sits on the bench, while I sit on a
smaller bench in front of the bed. A leaves, probably to get some of the
inmates, but neither me or Doc knew where she went. Shortly after we
arrive Z comes in with a fan, but then walks out again to find a cord for
it. Then Y turns up and says that the warden told him to come here to
translate. I am surprised to see him here already, but think that I might
as well take advantage of the situation. I tell him that it is actually more
about doing some interviews and that is where I will definitely need his
assistance but that I would be happy if he would join today. He said he
was in the middle of something, and he would like a few minutes to finish that and meet up with his visitor. He said the visitor was just bringing him food, so it wouldn't take long. He mentioned that the water
would come on soon, so he needed to place his dishes in the sink so they
could be washed. Y left and two other inmates came in to assemble a
table that was lying on the bed. They only had two of the four legs
needed for the table, and it seemed like they couldn't find a way to get
power to the fan, so A showed up and told us that we would have to
transfer. We transferred from the right side of the jail to the left side,
just inside the jail, in front of Zs cell. Here there was one bench, we
brought the small bench from the other side of the jail and they carried
out a table from Zs cell. Then some other inmates arrived with two
chairs, which was placed at the ends of the table. Doc placed himself at
one bench and X sat opposite to him. In between them was the chair for
the patient. I started standing up, trying to figure out how people would
place themselves and where I should place myself amongst them. Y returned. While the practical stuff was still being arranged and people
kept coming I shortly discussed the topic of my thesis with Y. He said
that it was heavy stuff, but that he could see it make sense. He said that
he knew that a lot of these guys (the Muslims, the partners, the Filipinos?) were here just because they had the wrong name. (which fits with
the story of a lot of the people picked up in Mindanao). He said it had to
be more frustrating to be here if you were innocent. That he didn't really
care about the labels they put on him and that he thought the criminals
probably didn't care if they were here for the wrong crime, because they
did so many other crimes. He said it must be different for the people
who are actually innocent, that they had to be searching for meaning,
that the problem would be when the wrong label is put on a person. He
then finished by saying of course he wouldn't really know how it was for
105
the innocent people to be here, since he had never experienced that
situation.
The medical examination begins, X is the first patient. Doc takes his
blood pressure. I notice X is looking kind of sad while he is examined.
He says that his problems are physical...
X is writing down the name and age of everybody on a piece of paper
with Balay logo on top. He says he would like to keep record about what
everybody is getting (the prescriptions). Doc says he will hand over all
the prescriptions to A and she says she will give the list to X.
The second patient is suffering from diabetes, his blood-sugar level is
1,2. Doc rolls his eyes. The patient (I believe I am the only one actually
using the term patient in this whole session) says it has been around 1,6
the last couple of weeks. X adds a question.
The second patient also gets his blood pressure taken and it is too high.
He gets a prescription but is told that he has to buy it himself, Doc recommends him to buy the cheapest brand. The patient asks if A has any.
Doc says that he should be medicated for this. X says that there is
probably 200 patients if they should all be treated for high blood pressure. At the end of the translation Y adds that high blood pressure is
very common in the Philippines. And I know that strokes are also one of
the major causes of death...
We can look down at the entrance of the prison, and see a group of people entering. They are all in uniforms, different from the ones the guards
wear. They are wearing grey pants and grey polo-shirts with BJMP logos, some of them jackets as well, but softshell jackets, so it looks like a
casual type of uniform. One of them is taking pictures with a high tech
camera. Y warns X about them, giving him a heads up as he says it (since
X is sitting with his back to the gate).The groups are taking pictures of
us and Y leans back to avoid the camera, I look away from it. Y says that
it is probably an inspection. He then jokes and says that they will probably get extra points for having a white person in the prison, even more
so when she is not even a hostage.
The consultation of the third patient starts. He also has high blood pressure and is prescribed BP medicine plus some vitamins. Doc says that A
will bring him the BP medicine and hand him the vitamins. Doc tells
106
him to remember his blood pressure so he can see if it decreases when
he takes the medicine...
A guy comes in wearing a mask. He doesn't look well. He looks like he
has a fever, sweating and in some way looking pale (not that he is more
white, but his skin has a different tone). Y tells me that this is a new
inmate from his wing and that he is diagnosed with TB. Y comments
that he doesn't know what will happen now, if there is even medicine for
this.
The guy with TB becomes the seventh patient. Doc asks him where he is
from. The guy almost whispers and it is hard to hear what he is saying. It
seems like he is afraid the bacteria's will spread if he speaks louder. Doc
tells him not to worry, leans closer to him and begins to touch him, putting on the blood pressure measurement, clearly showing that he is not
concerned with the risk of being contaminated with the disease. I notice
at the edge of the mask he is wearing, that his thyroid is swollen to the
size of a tennis ball. He has been diagnosed with TB when he arrived at
the jail and has been medicated since March...
The eleventh patients is introduced by X by his name and age (54). He
has a cough. Doc asks him if he smokes. He says that no one smokes
here, they are Muslims. Maybe some of the people in third floor smoke.
X tells Doc that in here a pack of cigarettes would cost 400 php, a stick
would cost 20 php, outside you can buy a whole pack for 50 php. Doc
looks surprised. He then asks if the patient takes anything else. The patients says he is not taking anything...
X tells that one of the next in line will go free soon. The brother of his
co-accused has just run for election and won. Therefore he and his coaccused will probably be set free soon...
Suddenly X changes the subject. Xs face turns serious while he talks and
Y looks surprised. Y translates that X told about his torture, that he was
electrocuted when he was arrested. X continues, I can see that he is
demonstrating how they put a bag over his head and tightened it under
his chin. He shows the tightening movements with his hand repeatedly,
like choking. Y asks him something about "taptap", X confirms. Y translates that they put a bag over his head. He asks X if they purred water on
the bag, X confirms. He translates for me that they purred water over his
head, that they used water boarding. X continues to say something
about taptap. Y translates that the worst thing was the dripping of water
107
and X demonstrates by tapping on his forehead between his eyebrows
with two fingers. I nod and say yes, Chinese water torture. They both
agree...
They are preparing for prayer time, rolling out the carpets all the way
down the hallway and on the common area of the ground floor. Some of
them has changed into praying gowns, some of them are still wearing
their yellow t-shirts.
X tells me there was 21 one patients. While he looks at my notes, probably noting that I haven't written the right number, only the number of
the consultations I could follow. Doc asks if it doesn't say 22 on the end
of his list and X says that number three never showed up because the
right BP medicine wasn't here.
We are offered that we can go into Z's cell while they pray, the one we
are sitting in front of. I ask if that is okay, and X confirms. I always feel
bad about being in or near the jail when they pray, knowing that women
are not supposed to be there when they pray. The staff from Balay always seem more relaxed about it...
108
Appendix 4: Description of the UPR Project
By Andrew M. Jefferson
Understanding prison reform – a study of entangled practices
in Sierra Leone, Kosovo and the Philippines18
Introduction
The prevention of torture, inhumane treatment and human rights
abuses in prisons remains a topic of urgent and global significance.
Global events have made places like Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo
household names and today the prison occupies a central place in popular consciousness. Yet, prisons and prison reform processes have received surprisingly little scientific attention.
Prisons beyond the west – especially in the global south - are understudied and ill understood, despite significant progress within the last few
years to establish the non-western prison as a focus for serious scholarly
work19. Practices of reform have received even less attention.
The activities of reform agencies typically imply that prisons are uniform
and homogenous. Most reports, for example, focus on prison conditions
– overcrowding, excessive pre-trial populations, health issues, rights
violations etc – and make recommendations rooted in externallyderived standards that the prisons fail to live up to (Carlen 2008; Sarkin
2008). Despite a wealth of local knowledge even reports by local advocacy groups tend to reiterate a critique of the prison in terms taken from
dominant generalizing typologies. The few ethnographic studies of such
prisons paint a different picture suggesting that prisons around the
world vary significantly in relation to local conditions and sociopolitical
and cultural contexts (Bandyopadhyay 2010; Piacentini 2004; Jefferson
2007a, 2010a).
In addition, despite the fact that prison reform activities are as old as the
prison itself and that penal practices and reform practices are inextrica-
This project forms part of a larger programme on Confinement, Violence and
Reform being implemented incrementally through the Rehabilitation and Research
Centre for Torture Victims (RCT) (see www.rct.dk).
19 Through the establishment of the Global Prisons Research Network (GPRN) the
applicant has been at the centre of this development. See www.gprn.org
18
109
bly linked20 it is rare for these to be studied together. This project aims
to fill this empirical and conceptual gap and will cement Denmark’s
position as one of the leading authorities in the field of torture prevention and further develop the ground-breaking research on prisons and
prison reform beyond the west already established by RCT.
The problematic – illuminating entangled encounters
The project will illuminate reform processes through analysis of the
interplay between penal practices and reform practices. Focus will be on
the dynamics, rationales and everyday practices of prisons and reform
agencies but most importantly on the way the two come together. This
meeting will be conceptualised as an encounter and focus will be on key
characteristics and assumptions as well as unforeseen consequences 21.
We know that reform efforts have different effects in different settings.
This project asks why and how reform projects in different settings
have particular effects. The logics of intervention will be examined
through the central analytic category of entanglement.
Key analytic category – entanglement
The project builds on work conducted by the applicant on prison practice and human rights training in Nigeria, and detention and violence in
Sierra Leone (Jefferson 2005, 2007 2010b, forthcoming). The central
analytic category of the project – entanglement – is one that has
emerged from these projects and which also resonates in the data and
analysis of GPRN members working in, for example, Brazil, Uganda, and
India. To date the concept has been useful to reflect two key aspects of
post-colonial prison practice that differentiate it from the western
prison. Firstly, relationships between staff and prisoners are not distant
but proximal and not characterized by enmity and distinctiveness but by
cordiality and commonality. In short relations are entangled; worlds are
shared. Secondly, in contrast to accounts of the western prison, the West
African prison at least is characterized not by a sharp distinction between inside and outside delineated by the physical walls and security
The prison has always been a visible site through which the state institutionalizes its power to punish and a site of resistance and reform, a focal point for popular protest and debate about, for example, the legitimacy of the state and the limits
of freedom. See Foucault 1979; Ignatieff 1978; Spierenburg 1991.
20
21
Whilst the prison will be subject to empirical study where possible, the primary object of study is the reform process itself. Previous work has focused
more on prison practices. This study privileges the position of the reformers in
an attempt to redress the balance but the focus is on the encounter.
110
apparatus of the institution but by porosity, permeability and relations
of exchange across borders.
The current project will not neglect these two uses of the entanglement
concept but will extend it further. The intention is to consider the extent
to which violent prison practices and targeted reform practices are entwined and even mutually constituting:
•
How might the relationship between reform and prison practice be characterized?
•
What dynamics and logics are at work?
•
What webs of power and interdependence are produced?
•
What effects do these have on the potential to bring about
change?
Relevance
Unpacking the empirical and conceptual relationship between penal
institutions and reform practices promises to be a useful way of furthering understandings of the prevention of torture and inhumane treatment. It also promises to contribute to a model of prevention based on
pertinent internal factors and structural conditions which would supplement generic interventions based on externally defined ‘best practices’ and minimum standards. The project will facilitate the grounding
of research-based models for promoting change, thus supporting a normative agenda to prevent violence and reduce the pains of imprisonment.
Methodology
Practice Research
Three case studies will be conducted focussing on the reform practices of
Prisons Watch Sierra Leone (PWSL), Kosovo Rehabilitation Center for
Victims of Torture (KRCT) and BALAY in the Philippines. The methodological point of entry is via relationships, processes and experiences, in
short via social practice (Dreier 2003). Utilizing research strategies developed within psychological practice research (Nissen 2000, Motzkau
& Jefferson 2009, Jefferson and Huniche 2009) and developmental
work research (Engestrom 1993) ‘co-researchers’ will be selected from
within the three organisations and engaged as research collaborators
and trained in data collection methods. The assumption is that personnel from reform agencies have a unique vantage point from which to
reflect upon the sites in which they work and intervene on in the light of
111
their own experiences. Within these related methodological traditions
which have been widely used in research on interventions and change
processes ‘co-researchers’ are simultaneously researchers and objects of
research. Data taken from participatory observation and interviews will
be brought into ‘evolving dialogue’ with reformers based on their own
participation in reform practices.
In addition, a method (the keeping of logbooks and shared critical reflections on these) fusing insights from diary studies (Jakobsen, Jensen
and Rønsbo 2008) and therapeutic process commentary will be developed as a means to activate, access and systematize the knowledge of
‘co-researchers’ about their own practices and the sites of their practice.
Tools and orientation will be refined during training workshops within
the early phase of the project. A theory/practice seminar will bring all
collaborators together to pool knowledge and conduct comparative
analysis. The applicant has proven expertise conducting studies in a
range of politically sensitive sites (prisons, barracks, ghettoes, camps)
and is well placed to train, supervise and engage with the ‘coresearchers’.
Data collection – in each country
3 X 3 interviews with Heads of Prisons (start, during, end) (9)
10 interviews with former prisoners (10)
3 log books kept by reform professionals on prison climate, interactions
with staff and prisoners, the reform process (3)
6 bi-monthly focus group discussions with reform professionals based
on logs (6)
3 X 2 reflexive interviews with reform professionals by applicant (month
5; month 20) (6) Identification of 3 key informants amongst prison staff
+ interviews (during, end) (6)
Total: 40 interviews/group discussions/logs
Grand total across 3 sites: 120
Choice of sites and partners
Prisons are politically sensitive, easily sensationalized and typically
rather secretive and therefore notoriously difficult to access and study.
One strategy to ensure access is to ally with an organization which al-
112
ready has access. Given this project’s concern with the interplay between
intervening agency and penal institution and given RCT’s links with
organizations working in prisons this is an obvious strategy. PWSL,
KRCT, and BALAY have been chosen specifically with an eye towards
feasibility and already existing linkages. RCT has strong ties with each of
the organizations and PWSL and BALAY are already well-known to the
applicant.
The organisations
PWSL, formed in 1996, are inspired by an activist commitment to human rights and a grass-roots dedication to the particular rights of prisoners. A core staff group of 10 co-ordinators are supplemented by a voluntary network of over 40 prison monitors spread around the country.
Key activities include monitoring, advocacy and the provision of humanitarian support to prisoners. They currently enjoy a positive and
open relationship with the prison authorities.
KRCT was established in the aftermath of the 1999 conflict, and has
developed from an organisation primarily concerned with the treatment
of victims of torture to an organisation systematically monitoring places
of detention in Kosovo, publishing annual reports with recommendations and findings, and conducting ongoing constructive dialogue with
prison authorities.
BALAY were formed in 1985 and since then have provided services to
victims of human rights violations with a particular focus on political
detainees and prison conditions. BALAY staff have a regular presence in
a number of prisons offering humanitarian support and seeking to empower prisoners.
The overall intentions of the three organizations are the same: to improve prison conditions, support prisoners, counter torture and inhumane treatment and promote human rights. Yet, whilst generally occupying a shared platform in the fight against torture and for human rights
each of the three organizations can be said to have an orientation that
distinguishes them from one another and which reflects an important
theme in contemporary prison studies. These themes – the notion of a
humane prison; prisoner-staff relations; and complicity – are evident
in the work of each organization but are weighted differently.
113
1. The notion of the humane prison - BALAY
Questions about the humanity or inhumanity of prisoners and what it
means to punish in a humane manner have often featured in debates
about the prison (Jones 2006). This theme was strikingly evident in an
early programme description of BALAY’s work that referred to their
desire to create ‘oases of harmony’ in a 19,000 man prison in Manila.
Ideas about what it means to act humanely – implicitly or explicitly inform both penal practices and reform practices and will be subject to
scrutiny.
2. Prisoner - staff relationships - KRCT
Prison studies demonstrate that one of the most important criteria for
evaluating prison climate is the staff-prisoner relationship (Liebling
2004). The development of the RCT-KRCT project co-operation which
the applicant followed closely featured a particular desire to make the
voices of prisoners audible to the prison authorities by way of a complaints mechanism. This resulted in concrete proposals to bring guards
and prisoners together at regular intervals as a form of intervention.
Exploring KRCT’s orientation towards the empowerment of prisoners
vis-à-vis staff will allow us to examine what happens when prisoners and
staff are approached not in oppositional terms (us versus them; perpetrators versus victims) but as caught up in entangled webs. In relation to
this theme the project also aims (in collaboration with the Institute of
Criminology, Cambridge University) to utilize a measure of the quality
of prison life developed by Liebling et al (2004).
3. Collaboration / complicity - PWSL
The theme of entangled relationships is also pertinent in Sierra Leone
where guards and prisoners share very similar conditions. But the most
distinctive aspect of PWSL’s work is their orientation towards the authorities themselves. Whilst historically they have had a confrontational
relationship today they enjoy a collaborative relationship through which
they are able to both critique and build capacity. The theme of complicity is of particular interest – where is the boundary between the prison
service and the reform organization? Is the ability to critique violent
practices and poor conditions diluted by the closeness of the relationship? What does it mean exactly to work ‘with and not for the authorities’ as the Director of PWSL puts it?
Whilst standing out as distinct orientations of each organisation these
themes are actually cross-cutting. The themes will frame data collection
(informing interview guides and focus group discussions) and feature as
114
key analytic lenses as well as serving as dynamic ‘axes of variation’ (Bowen 1999:234) allowing for the illumination of differences and similarities across the three sites.
Ethics and challenges
Prisons are sensitive sites and reform activities sensitive politicised
fields. The applicant is aware that particular care must be taken to handle the challenge of exploring practices where stakes are so high.
Dependence on interpretation present particular challenges both practically and epistemologically (i.e. in regard to data collection and data
analysis). Considerable care will be taken to design interview guides and
data collection instruments which acknowledge the difficulties presented by translation.
The project will be governed by the relevant professional ethical guidelines. Particular attention will be paid to the security of sensitive data
and the safety of local collaborators. Access is often an issue in prisons
research. Given the research design we do not envisage a huge problem
in this regard but considerable care will be taken not to jeopardise the
ongoing work of the collaborating organisations.
Outputs and significance
Realistic outputs from the project include at least 5 peer-reviewed articles (3 case-based articles, 1 comparative and 1 discussing methodology), and 1 policy paper. The hope will be to follow-up the project with
an edited volume. A scientific conference will be arranged towards the
end of the project (funds to be applied for separately) and a thematic
panel presentation will be made at an international conference. The setup of the project strengthens links between RCT and current partners in
the area of knowledge generation and will create links between these
partners, enhancing the potential for widely disseminating results and
new knowledge both in the academy and in policy and practice circles.
15740 characters
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Appendix 5: Jacob Pedersen's Researcher Positions
By Jacob Pedersen
To supplement section 3.4 about the position of Liv Stoltze Gaborit, this
appendix presents a summary of some of the reflexions that could be
relevant if analysing from the researcher perspective of Jacob Pedersen.
Being a Male researcher in a Male jail
The importance of this position actually only became apparent working
with my female co-researcher Liv. Especially working with the Muslims
made it clear that gender matters. Their belief system and patriarchal
hierarchy made it obvious that I as a male had another position than my
co-researcher. They would often direct their attention to me, even sometimes when Liv posed a question they would answer looking at me. This
made the time we spent with the Muslims rather energy consuming for
me as I had to be “on” all the time.
Being an Atheist Among Muslims
Ever since I first visited the jail and the Muslim inmates Balay is working with, my own personal beliefs has been a recurring matter on which
I have reflected. Their belief in a greater power is quite profound and is
an integral part of their daily life. As an atheist myself it has been hard at
times to understand these religious convictions and I have been worried
that my lack of faith would somehow create a cleft between us. It was
not the fact that I was not a Muslim that seemed to be the problem but
more the fact that I had no religious belief.
Preconceptions of Balay and Their Partners
During my internship with Balay in the spring of 2010 I acquired a lot of
knowledge regarding Balay's work, their partners and the jails. Therefore certain preconceptions and understandings of the field had already
emerged. As such I cannot claim that I met the field without having
some idea as to what I deemed important. This in some way has helped
me sharpen my focus from the beginning but simultaneously it might
also have made me blind to new interpretations and understandings of
what I experienced during my fieldwork. After all, three years has
passed since then and much had changed.
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