Incarcerated women’s cooking and eating practices in a ‘humane’ Danish open prison

0Citations
Citations of this article
9Readers
Mendeley users who have this article in their library.

Abstract

The aim of this article is to examine incarcerated women’s cooking and eating practices in a Danish open prison to gain insight into the Nordic penal exceptionalism debate. Self-catering and the policy of normalization, which dictates that prison conditions be as similar as possible to conditions outside the prison, have been seen by some as evidence of humane prison conditions. This article draws on three months of ethnographic fieldwork to argue that incarcerated women in a mixed-gender Danish open prison use cooking and eating to display family, articulate allegiance, and negotiate relations of exchange. Incarcerated women used food preparation to maintain relationships with family and negotiate relationships with other prisoners, yet data also reveal the ways in which incarceration and turnover profoundly strained these relationships. I argue that self-catering is worth emulating while emphasizing the limitations of labelling it humane and propose that turnover deserves further research.

Cite

CITATION STYLE

APA

Weir, M. (2021). Incarcerated women’s cooking and eating practices in a ‘humane’ Danish open prison. Nordic Journal of Criminology, 22(2), 169–184. https://doi.org/10.1080/2578983X.2021.1982551

Register to see more suggestions

Mendeley helps you to discover research relevant for your work.

Already have an account?

Save time finding and organizing research with Mendeley

Sign up for free