LOOKING UP: THE TEMPORAL HORIZONS OF A FATHER IN PRISON

Abstract

Studies of incarcerated men frequently describe their incapacitation as fathers. This phenomenological study challenges the notion that fathering must necessarily go dormant in prison. It provides a sensitive look at the lived experiences of one particular father who has maintained contact with his daughter over the past 18 years of his incarceration. By carefully disclosing his daughter’s presence (real and imagined) in his day to day ‘doing time’ in prison, the study explores how temporalities—the experience of presences, pasts, futures, etc.—are essential structures in the decidedly non-dormant being of fathers, and profoundly shape the way prisoners orient toward or away from life, hope, and despair. Implications for prison-based parenting and family literacy projects are discussed.