Learning to be a ‘Safe’ ex-con: race, symbolic violence and discipline in prisoner re-entry

Abstract

ABSTRACTThis article seeks to investigate the ways in which conceptions of race and interact with symbolic violence, discipline and governmentality to produce a responsibilized subject willing to participate in the racialized forms of deference necessary for participation in the secondary labor market. It is based on three years of ethnographic fieldwork conducted in a Career Development class in an agency that serves formerly incarcerated individuals who are primarily African American males. In order to meet job placement goals, the agency has focused job development efforts on the secondary labor market. The article focuses on the tensions that develop as program staff attempt to prepare class participants to accept these positions.