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Going to the Crackhouse: Critical Space as a Form of Resistance in Total Institutions and Everyday Life
Author(s) -
McCorkel Jill A.
Publication year - 1998
Publication title -
symbolic interaction
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.874
H-Index - 47
eISSN - 1533-8665
pISSN - 0195-6086
DOI - 10.1525/si.1998.21.3.227
Subject(s) - total institution , institution , resistance (ecology) , distancing , everyday life , construct (python library) , sociology , space (punctuation) , identity (music) , social psychology , control (management) , social control , public relations , psychology , social science , management , political science , law , aesthetics , computer science , covid-19 , philosophy , ecology , pathology , biology , operating system , programming language , medicine , disease , infectious disease (medical specialty) , economics
This article explores the extent to which organizational identity claims and the formal organization of social control influence how actors in a total institution conceptualize their “real” selves. The setting for this case study is Project Rehabilitate Women, a drug treatment program serving incarcerated female offenders. Using Goffman's analysis of the total institution as a guide, I explore the importance of “secondary adjustments” for self‐definition. This analysis will show that the capacity of residents to distance themselves from the label of “addict” is contingent on the formal structure of social control. I will argue that, in the absence of traditional distancing strategies, residents construct “critical space” as an alternative means to subvert institutional control mechanisms and to creatively acquire the resources necessary to articulate definitions of self that are distinct from staff constructions. It is clear that resistance, whether temporary or sustained, successful or failed, is central to how subordinates maintain their sense of self in an environment committed to radical self‐transformation.