Doctoral Dissertation Research: Incarceration, Ethics, and Nonviolence

该奖项支持的研究将调查在监禁条件下的道德选择和非暴力身份。从机场安检队伍、候机室到大规模监禁，监禁已经成为日常生活中根深蒂固的一部分。研究人员将专注于当监禁的生活不沦为反抗或服从时会发生什么。目的是了解道德解决方案，而不是强化规则或监视技术，是否可以解决危机级别的问题，例如愤怒和暴力的循环。为了调查这个问题，研究人员将重点放在监狱的极端例子上，利用在阿拉巴马州监狱引入“信仰和品格为基础的项目”所提供的研究机会。这项研究将由约翰霍普金斯大学人类学博士生托马斯·桑顿在纳维达·汗博士的指导下，在最高安全级别的监狱信仰宿舍内进行。通过基于长期观察、访谈和与监狱和牧师人员接触的民族志田野调查，研究人员将追求三个首要问题：刑事服从如何与非暴力伦理联系起来？如何通过文本研究有效地鼓励非暴力？非暴力是如何培养和体现在囚犯身上的？通过研究男性囚犯是如何实践信仰的，研究者的项目将研究非暴力生活被培养的微观过程，甚至是与永远存在的暴力相关联的过程。这项研究的结果将有助于学者、立法者和公众之间对监狱政策的讨论。

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.