" We were just testing what kind of man you are " - negotiating masculinities in a New Mexico prison

Résumé En

This article addresses the issue of spatial injustice/s at the level of the prison. The article begins by contextualizing prisons, introducing the spatial context of differences in implementing justice within the United States. It briefly explores the becoming and structuring of prisons and addresses prisoners' identity work to illustrate the ways in which different prisoners use different resources available inside and outside of the prison in order to negotiate the experience of punishment within the US legal system. In so doing, it draws on a wider study with 21 male prisoners of different ethnic backgrounds in a New Mexico prison. In particular, drawing on work by Wetherell and Edley (1999), the article explores different kinds of masculinities expressed by prisoners as a response to the prison system as well as a way of bridging prison lives and the outside world. The analysis shows that prison spaces cannot be viewed as homogeneous spaces in which ideas of justice are translated into the same means of control and punishment for all prisoners.