Concept-Formation, Complexity and Social Domains: Investigating Emotion(S) in a Prison Setting

This article reports on an ethnographic study focusing on the impact of in-cell television on prison life in a male adult prison in the UK. Layder's social domains model (1997; 2006) and his adaptive analysis (1998; 2014), were used to give shape, meaning and organization to data from interviews with prisoners and staff and also television-use diaries. The research highlighted how television is adopted for its care-giving qualities ( Knight 2015 ; 2016). This article focuses primarily on what prisoners do and what prison does, with emotions. The paper focuses on examining and developing theoretical and methodological conceptual links between self, emotions and control in the prison setting.