Abstract
While I was doing fieldwork in a Montreal women’s jail an unexpected detail emerged that intrigued me as a sociologist: the striking presence of the rosary. This detail is at the core of the present article. Conspicuous and discreet, exotic and trivial, the white plastic rosary given by volunteers to incarcerated women was everywhere. Without assuming an inherently religious character, and resisting the temptation to make of it something profound or curious, I ask in this article two simple questions: What is the rosary as an artefact? And how much about chaplaincy at the women’s jail and Catholicism in contemporary Quebec is condensed in this detail? The answers to these questions instruct us on the context of the jail, the study of religion today, and the importance of artefacts.
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