In]Subordination: Inmate Photography and Narrative Elicitation in a Youth Incarceration Facility

Abstract

There is a growing urgency and social responsibility regarding the lives and experiences of incarcerated juveniles; the author utilizes a visual ethnographic methodology using participant photography in a prison facility in Louisiana to simultaneously invert the surveillance structure and add “layers of significance” (Pink, 2007) to the narrative process. The results, from the photographs and interviews with six incarcerated juvenile participants, highlight the degree to which a confining subordination dictates the lives of these kids while incarcerated as well as how the systemic, institutionalized oppression influences their understanding of their role as incarcerated juvenile while serving their sentence. The photographic images evoke responses regarding the rare physicality of encounters with security staff, the confining impact of their cells, the conception of juvenile jail and adult jail, and the facility’s surveillance apparatus.