Doctoral Dissertation Research: Incarceration, Ethics, and Nonviolence

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

The research supported by this award will investigate the taking on of ethical choices and non-violent identities under conditions of confinement. From airport security lines and waiting rooms to mass incarceration, confinement has become entrenched in everyday life. The researcher will focus on what happens when life under confinement is not reduced to either defiance or compliance. The goal is to understand if ethical solutions, rather than intensifying rules or surveillance techniques, can solve crisis-level problems, such as cycles of rage and violence. To investigate this question, the researcher will focus on the extreme example of prisons, taking advantage of the research opportunity offered by the introduction of "faith and character-based programs" across Alabama state prisons. The research will be conducted by Johns Hopkins University anthropology doctoral student, Thomas Thornton, with guidance from Dr. Naveeda Khan, inside a maximum-security prison faith dorm. Through ethnographic fieldwork grounded in long-term observations, interviews, and engagement with prison and chaplaincy personnel, the researcher will pursue three overarching questions: How does penal compliance connect to an ethics of nonviolence? How is nonviolence effectively encouraged through textual study? How is nonviolence cultivated and embodied by the prisoners? By studying how faith is practiced among male inmates, the researcher's project will examine the micro-processes through which nonviolent life is fostered, even adjacent to the perpetual presence of violence. Findings from this research will contribute to prison policy discussions among scholars, legislators, and the general public.