Beyond Conceptual Ambiguity: Exemplifying the "Resistance Pyramid" Through the Reflections of (Ex) Prisoners' Agency

Melissa Munn; Chris Bruckert

doi:10.18778/1733-8077.6.2.07

Authors

Melissa Munn University of Calgary, Canada
Chris Bruckert University of Ottawa, Canada

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.18778/1733-8077.6.2.07

Keywords:

Resistance, Prison, Parole, Ethnomethodology

Abstract

Contemporary resistance scholarship increasingly positions individuals as agents operating within power relations and as such, this stimulating and diverse body of work illuminates the complexity of powerresistance. The richness of this academic engagement notwithstanding, there continues to be a paucity of work which offers a framework for conducting an analysis of resistance. In this article, we propose a general framework through which power-resistance can be coded, analyzed and theorized. Using data from an ethnomethodological study of 20 former longterm male prisoners in Canada, we demonstrate the usefulness of our 'resistance pyramid' to render visible the objectives, purposes, strategies, tactics and skills which characterize the processes, and not just the practices, of resistance. We argue that it is exactly these, often obscured, processes that allow us to appreciate the density of resistance-power, the multiple ways it operates and the significance of individuals' social, personal or political capital.

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Author Biographies

Melissa Munn, University of Calgary, Canada

Melissa Munn (PhD, UOttawa)is a criminologist who's area of expertise is prisoner release, reentry and resettlement. She recently co-authored "Getting Out. Staying Out: Words of Wisdom from former long term prisoners", and has been a human rights advocate for over two decades. She teaches in the Sociology and Women's Studies departments at Okanagan College (Canada) and is currently working on a digitization project which will create a virtual library of penal press materials.

Chris Bruckert, University of Ottawa, Canada

Chris Bruckert is an Associate Professor at the University of Ottawa (Canada). Her substantive areas of interest are sex work and prisoner release and reintegration. In her work she draws on the writings of Foucault, Goffman and neo-Marxists to examine regulation and resistance in the margins.

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