Field Theory, Jails and Penality

Field theory can be applied to a vast variety of social contexts. Yet, one would look in vain for a penitentiary or carceral field proper. The works on prisons, the penal or the judiciary systems inspired by Pierre Bourdieu’s sociology have not made use of such concepts. Those that seem to rely on them do use them only in a very generic and vague sense. This paper problematizes this missed encounter, which is surprising when one keeps in mind the robust resurgence, in the French sociology of the last fifteen years, of works focusing on prison and penality. It first proposes a set of hypotheses explaining this phenomenon, and then subjects to concept to an empirical test by speaking in favor of adopting the concept of field in these matters. Conceiving carceral institutions and the penitentiary system as fields makes it possible to develop a totalizing perspective while also drawing attention to the power relations that structure these fields. This paves the way towards a theoretical reconstruction aiming at overcoming the limitations and divisions characteristic of these fields, which tend to impact the studies that takes them as their objects.