Competing Masculinities in a Prison

Abstract

This article draws on fieldwork conducted in a central prison in Kolkata, India, which I experienced as an overwhelmingly male space. This ethnographic material demonstrates the nature of the male space and the practices through which male identities were made and defined within this space. I argue that the experience of the prison and incarceration is one in which the dominant norms of maleness are challenged. Through the processes of divestiture of rights implicit in imprisonment, the image of a man as an independent agent of his destiny, as protector of his family, as a worker and bread earner, or even as a strong and influential man in the neighborhood are displaced. I explore the ways male prisoners deal with this “less than a man” image within the prison. The gendered nature of the prison as an organization emerges when examining contexts in which male identities are enacted and made.