Carceral spaces in South Africa: a case study of institutional power, sexuality and transgression in a women's prison

A critique of South African research on the compound provides a-valuable entry point for the analysis of interviews collected over an 18 month period in a South African women's prison. Drawing on the theoretical questions raised in this literature and geographical concepts of the interrelationship of identity and space, the prison is mapped out in terms of the physical space and the signification that these spaces hold for prisoners and prison authorities. Using the Foucauldian concept of panopticism, the prison is examined as an example of a complete and austere institution. Prisoner resistances to the institution are documented and the prison codes of conduct around masculine and feminine sexual identities are critiqued. The response of prison staff and heterosexual prisoners to same-sex sexuality and butch-femme roles is analysed in terms df Butler's concept of performative transgressions and the geographical work on social exclusion. (C) 1999 Published by Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.