Doctoral Dissertation Research: Investigating the Meaning and Experience of Motherhood in Correctional Facilities

摘要本研究探讨了母性在监禁女性的惩罚和控制中的含义。先前的研究表明，母性是女性意义和自我价值的重要来源，但也限制和制约了女性的生活。对于被监禁的女性来说，与母性相关的喜悦和悲伤被惩罚和监禁的条件夸大了。本研究在已有研究的基础上，运用多种方法考察监狱母性的社会建构。通过民族志、访谈和案例记录的检查，本研究研究了母性建构被用来惩罚、控制和奖励女囚犯的方式，包括正式的、通过制度化的惩罚系统，以及非正式的、通过互动、基于种族和阶级地位的对女性的刻板假设，以及对女性与母性相关的内疚感的操纵。为了进一步探讨母性的复杂性，本研究还探讨了女性通过母性的抵抗。母性在多大程度上给予妇女力量，使她们能够在监禁中生存下来，并以积极的方式定义自己，尽管体制和社会的信息与此相反？这项研究将母性集中在性别惩罚的研究中，并为在很大程度上隐藏在美国意识之外的人群发出了声音。专门针对被监禁妇女的政策往往含糊不清，不统一。母性在妇女生活中的首要地位，在整个社会中将母性作为社会控制，以及现有的性别惩罚做法强烈表明，母性在对妇女的刑事惩罚中起作用。然而，我们对控制被监禁妇女与其子女之间关系的社会过程知之甚少。这项工作将试图建立关于监禁母亲的可测试的假设，这些假设与广泛的社会科学受众和政策驱动的立法机构和刑事司法系统有关。

Primary Investigators: Naomi Gerstel and Brittnie L. AielloInvestigating the Meaning and Experience of Motherhood in Correctional Facilities0718018AbstractThis research examines the implication of motherhood in the punishment and control of incarcerated women. Previous research has documented that motherhood is an important resource for meaning and self-worth for women, but also limits and constrains the lives of women. For incarcerated women, the joy and sadness associated with motherhood are exaggerated by the conditions of punishment and confinement. Building on existing research, this research uses multiple methods to investigate the social construction of motherhood in jail. Through ethnography, interviews, and examination of case records, this research studies the ways that constructions of motherhood are used to punish, control, and reward women inmates, both formally, through institutionalized systems of punishment and informally, through interaction, stereotypical assumptions about women based on their race and class status, and the manipulation of women's guilt associated with motherhood. To further explore the complexities of motherhood, this research also delves into women's resistance through motherhood. To what extent does motherhood give women the strength to survive their incarceration and define themselves in positive ways in spite of institutional and societal messages to the contrary? This research centralizes motherhood in the study of gendered punishment and gives a voice to a population largely hidden from the American consciousness. Policies governing concerns that are specific to incarcerated women are often ambiguous and non-uniform. The primacy of motherhood in women's lives, the use of motherhood as social control in society at-large, and existing practices of gendered punishment strongly suggest that motherhood is at work in the criminal punishment of women. Yet, we know little about the social processes that govern relationships between incarcerated women and their children. This work will attempt to establish testable hypotheses about incarcerated motherhood that speak to a wide social science audience and a policy-driven legislature and criminal justice system.