Abstract

In this contribution we will try to focus on the importance of the ethnographic method in identifying the daily aspects of detention through the analysis of the imprisoned body, intended as a site under the control of the penitentiary institution. Bodies generate boundaries within the prison that divide people into categories. These dividing practices are configured as central to the institution in order to maintain the balance of power, indicating to each actor “who’s whatµ. The first border is intended to strongly differentiate the detained population from the non-detained one. The second, more hidden, although very clear to the women involved in the research, divides the bodies of the inmates themselves through the criterion of “looking like a prisoner or notµ. This aspect is part of the feminine’s specificity, which emerged by thinking of prison as a gendered institution (J. Acker, 1990). These body control devices are treacherous because they are not regulated, but they are part of the informal and discretionary baggage of rules underlying prison culture; for this reason they are difficult to trace for those who are external to it.