Dettagli

• Autore: Ferreccio Vanina Vianello Francesca
• Vai al libro: Clicca qui

Abstract

This article focuses on issues related to sociological research in prison, with particular reference to the need for researchers to deal with paradigms legitimizing imprisonment. Even when leaving the field open to the researcher, prison administrations seem to expect him to subscribe to the principles that govern the institution. Starting from the authors research experience, the article reconstructs the plot and looks at the possible conflict between, on the one hand, the strategies deployed by the institution in order to obtain a functional stance on the part of the researcher and, on the other, the values that the researcher necessarily brings with her/him in defining hypotheses and marking the boundaries of the research field. The researcher needs a degree of independence and even the possibility to reject the ideology that governs the institution, in order to verify the premises that legitimize the institution and to investigate their ideological function. It appears important to counter the risk of prison research being limited to prison administration and management, in a purely reformist perspective, unable to deal scientifically with the social meanings underlying imprisonment.

Dettagli

• Autore: Ferreccio Vanina Vianello Francesca
• Vai al libro: Clicca qui

Abstract

This article focuses on issues related to sociological research in prison, with particular reference to the need for researchers to deal with paradigms legitimizing imprisonment. Even when leaving the field open to the researcher, prison administrations seem to expect him to subscribe to the principles that govern the institution. Starting from the authors research experience, the article reconstructs the plot and looks at the possible conflict between, on the one hand, the strategies deployed by the institution in order to obtain a functional stance on the part of the researcher and, on the other, the values that the researcher necessarily brings with her/him in defining hypotheses and marking the boundaries of the research field. The researcher needs a degree of independence and even the possibility to reject the ideology that governs the institution, in order to verify the premises that legitimize the institution and to investigate their ideological function. It appears important to counter the risk of prison research being limited to prison administration and management, in a purely reformist perspective, unable to deal scientifically with the social meanings underlying imprisonment.