• Login
    View Item 
    •   Home
    • UA Graduate and Undergraduate Research
    • UA Theses and Dissertations
    • Dissertations
    • View Item
    •   Home
    • UA Graduate and Undergraduate Research
    • UA Theses and Dissertations
    • Dissertations
    • View Item
    JavaScript is disabled for your browser. Some features of this site may not work without it.

    Browse

    All of UA Campus RepositoryCommunitiesTitleAuthorsIssue DateSubmit DateSubjectsPublisherJournalThis CollectionTitleAuthorsIssue DateSubmit DateSubjectsPublisherJournal

    My Account

    LoginRegister

    About

    AboutUA Faculty PublicationsUA DissertationsUA Master's ThesesUA Honors ThesesUA PressUA YearbooksUA CatalogsUA Libraries

    Statistics

    Most Popular ItemsStatistics by CountryMost Popular Authors

    Forging Selfhood: Masculinity, Identity and Work in Arizona's Inmate Wildfire Program

    • CSV
    • RefMan
    • EndNote
    • BibTex
    • RefWorks
    Thumbnail
    Name:
    azu_etd_16428_sip1_m.pdf
    Size:
    2.423Mb
    Format:
    PDF
    Download
    Author
    Feldman, Lindsey Raisa
    Issue Date
    2018
    Keywords
    arizona
    identity
    masculinity
    prison
    work
    Advisor
    Sheridan, Thomas
    
    Metadata
    Show full item record
    Publisher
    The University of Arizona.
    Rights
    Copyright © is held by the author. Digital access to this material is made possible by the University Libraries, University of Arizona. Further transmission, reproduction, presentation (such as public display or performance) of protected items is prohibited except with permission of the author.
    Abstract
    The United States prison system is a true ‘black box’ of modern society; most penal philosophies, policies, and daily realities are obscured from the outside world. Because of this obscurity, the prison system is often presented as a reified institution that unilaterally enacts punitive and neoliberal mechanisms of control. My dissertation utilizes tools of in-depth ethnography to provide nuance to this potentially monolithic view. Lynch (2010) and Rubin (2015) argue that any state’s prison system, and indeed any one complex or yard, must be put in its social and ideological context. I draw on these premises to argue that prisons should be considered living, breathing spaces where individuals are capable of manifesting their own notions of selfhood each day. I explain how incarcerated people in a particular prison program find cracks in the seemingly solid, dehumanizing foundation of modern imprisonment, taking hold of spaces where access to dignity and hope remain. I offer a case study of Arizona’s Inmate Wildfire Program (IWP), in which incarcerated people are contracted by the state to fight wildfires. I became a certified wildland firefighter and spent 15 months fighting over 30 fires alongside three prison fire crews. This labor program presents an experiential paradox for its participants. It is at once exploitative—with little pay for risky work, and little material support upon release from prison—while simultaneously transformative for those who fight fires. By ‘transformative,’ I mean that certain aspects of the job of wildfire fighting provide individuals with more complex and powerful notions of selfhood than would otherwise be obtainable on the prison yard. There are three major aspects of incarcerated peoples’ identities that are positively impacted by the IWP. They are: 1) a physical and symbolic movement away from the social categorization that occurs in the carceral system; 2) a construction of alternative masculine identities based on tenets of vulnerability, intimacy, and racial inclusion; and 3) an expression of complex working identities that offers a sense of self that is antithetical to the obedient and routinized modes of being on the yard. Even as this labor program operates within the strictures of an inherently punitive regime, it provides space for participants to reject certain aspects of modern incarceration’s deleterious effects. Understanding the processes by which this program persists, and is experienced at a daily level for its participants, offers a more thorough view of the social complexities of modern incarceration. As such, this dissertation offers a dynamic case study that furthers debates in a broad array of literatures, including the anthropology of masculinity, the anthropology of work, and the anthropology of the prison.
    Type
    text
    Electronic Dissertation
    Degree Name
    Ph.D.
    Degree Level
    doctoral
    Degree Program
    Graduate College
    Anthropology
    Degree Grantor
    University of Arizona
    Collections
    Dissertations

    entitlement

     
    The University of Arizona Libraries | 1510 E. University Blvd. | Tucson, AZ 85721-0055
    Tel 520-621-6442 | repository@u.library.arizona.edu
    DSpace software copyright © 2002-2017  DuraSpace
    Quick Guide | Contact Us | Send Feedback
    Open Repository is a service operated by 
    Atmire NV
     

    Export search results

    The export option will allow you to export the current search results of the entered query to a file. Different formats are available for download. To export the items, click on the button corresponding with the preferred download format.

    By default, clicking on the export buttons will result in a download of the allowed maximum amount of items.

    To select a subset of the search results, click "Selective Export" button and make a selection of the items you want to export. The amount of items that can be exported at once is similarly restricted as the full export.

    After making a selection, click one of the export format buttons. The amount of items that will be exported is indicated in the bubble next to export format.