Understanding carceral mobilities in and through lived experiences of incarceration

Abstract

Recent scholarship on carceral mobilities critiques conceptualizations of carceral spaces as fixed and stable, and movements within or around sites of confinement as linear and horizontal. According to this critique, criminological studies of imprisonment have typically embraced what Turner and Peters (2017) [‘Rethinking mobility in criminology’, Punishment & Society 19(1), 96–114] term a ‘sedentarist ontology’ by failing to consider the complexities of prisoner mobilities in the lived experiences of the carceral. We draw on qualitative interview data from the Prison Transparency Project, a multiyear study initially across four research sites in Canada focused on former prisoners’ narratives of their carceral experiences, to identify and analyze the multifaceted mobilities that characterize prison life. We focus on three aspects of carceral mobilities: the use of psychotropic medications to produce docility, the coercive (im)mobilities of physical restraints and the ‘prison on wheels’ (i.e., prisoner transport vehicles). Using the concept of ‘kinetic immobility’, in which prisoners’ bodies are immobilized so they can be coercively moved (or not) through space and time, we consider the degree to which the theoretical work on carceral mobilities aligns with lived experiences of incarceration, as narrated by research participants.