In conversation with the empty shelves of time: on publishing an anthology of women’s prison writing

Whitecross, R (2022) In conversation with the empty shelves of time: on publishing an anthology of women’s prison writing. In: British Sociological Association Virtual Annual Conference: Building Equality and Justice Now, 20 - 22 April 2022, [online].

Abstract

The steep rise in the female prison population over the last three decades worldwide, as well as in the UK, has increased the urgency for a critical concern with the experiences of women in prison, and their representations thereof in life writing and prison narratives. Scheffler (2002, p. xvi) argues that to publish women’s prison writing is to raise awareness around women’s imprisonment. Carlen and Tchaikovsky (1996, p. 211) similarly argue that in order to keep the “endemic secrecy” of the carceral machine in check, its inner workings should be opened up to the public gaze, in particular to monitor its tendencies to revert from progressive to regressive practices. In the UK, the narratives of lived experience written by women in prison are underrepresented in the cultural, academic and social spheres. Scheffler (1984, p. 65; 2002, p. xv) writes of women’s prison literature as marginal texts lost within the “marginal literature of the prison” depicting facets of women’s experience deemed too unpleasant to warrant attention. In this paper, I explore how publishing women’s prison writing in the anthology How Bleak is the Crow’s Nest, is one method of reminding society that incarcerated women exist (Scheffler, 2002, p. xxi) from the perspective of epistemic justice through the prisoner viewpoint, imprisoned women writing their lived experiences. Women’s prison writing is a rich storehouse of records, both empirical and practical, of the physical surroundings, attitudes, people and events that make an impression on the woman as writer in prison (Scheffler, 1984, p. 65).

Item Type:	Conference or Workshop Item (Paper)
Note:	Presentation was part of the 'Methodological Innovations' stream.
Divisions:	School of Sciences
Date Deposited:	14 Sep 2022 13:36
Last Modified:	15 Sep 2022 08:27
URI / Page ID:	https://researchspace.bathspa.ac.uk/id/eprint/14968

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