From anxiety to fear: how metaphysical concerns arise in prison life
Search for other papers by Thibault Ducloux in
Current site
Google Scholar
In Western prisons, inmates’ religious conversions are a social fact in which fear plays a predominant role. Based on a qualitative and longitudinal survey conducted over two years in a French prison, this article aims to show how religious fears emerge in the consciousness of non-religious prisoners. Phenomenologically, the empirical data show that these fears arise because of an incapacitating state of anxiety. Over time, life in prison affects the social identity of individuals, their structuring markers and their biographical continuity. But the social mechanisms of anxiety are not those of fear. It is diffuse anxiety that allows the appearance of a new and identified fear. This enigma is interesting for the sociology of knowledge and therefore of socialisation: individuals are not afraid of what they do not know. The survey highlights that the emergence of these fears of God, sin, hell and so on reveals a process of regression of the habitus of the inmates to their primary socialisations. As irrational as they may seem for the frightened themselves, these fears show a structuring potential by interpreting and organising the disconcerting distress of which they are the product. Fear – religious or not – integrates and synthesises anxiety. From that moment, the appearance of fear augurs a gain of psychic, intellectual and finally practical mastery of a situation without which it would have remained unmanageable. This is how intramural trajectories become conversion paths.
-
Abbott, A. (2016) Processual Sociology, Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
-
Abu-Lughod, L. and Lutz, C. (1990) Language and the Politics of Emotion, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
-
Ahren, J. (2018) Angst. Eine (kultur-)soziologische Perspektive, in C. Thompson and A. Schäfer (eds) Angst. Dimensionen eines Gefühls [Fear. A (cultural) sociological perspective], Paderborn: Wilhelm Fink, pp 37–63.
-
Assoun, P.L., Lavabre, M.C., Maitre, J. and Vernier, B. (1995) Psychanalyse et sciences sociales [Psychoanalysis and the social sciences], Politix, 8(29): 186–221.
-
Atchley, R. and McCabe, P. (1968) Socialization in correctional communities: a replication, American Sociological Review, 33(5): 774–85. doi: 10.2307/2092887
-
Becci, I. (2011) Religion’s multiple locations in prisons: Germany, Italy and Switzerland, Archives des Sciences Sociales du Religieux, 153: 65–84. doi: 10.4000/assr.22748
-
Beckford, J.A. and Gilliat, S. (1998) Religion in Prison: Equal Rites in a Multi-Faith Society, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
-
Béraud, C., de Galembert, C. and Rostaing, C. (2016) De la religion en prison [On Religion in Prison], Rennes: Presses Universitaires de Rennes.
-
Berger, P.L. and Luckmann, T. (1966) The Social Construction of Reality: A Treatise in the Sociology of Knowledge, Garden City, NY: Anchor Books.
-
Bourgoin, N. (1994) Le suicide en prison [Suicide in Prison], Paris: L’Harmattan.
-
Brardinelli, R.L. and Algranti, J. (2013) La Re-Invención Religiosa del Encierro. Hermanitos, Refugiados y Cachivaches en los Penales Bonaerenses [The Religious Re-Invention of Imprisonment. Brotherhood, Refugees and Cachivaches in Buenos Aires penitentiaries], Buenos Aires: Centro Cultural de la Cooperación.
-
Bréchon, P. (2018) La transmission des pratiques et croyances religieuses d’une génération à l’autre [The transmission of religious practices and beliefs from one generation to the next], Revue de l’OFCE, 2(156): 11–27.
-
Carleton, R.N. (2016) Fear of the unknown: one fear to rule them all?, Journal of Anxiety Disorders, 41: 5–21. doi: 10.1016/j.janxdis.2016.03.011
-
Dammer, H.R. (2002) Religion in corrections, in, The Encyclopedia of Crime and Punishment, New York: Sage.
-
Delarue, J.M. (2012) Continuité et discontinuité de la condition carcérale [Continuity and discontinuity of the prison condition], Revue du MAUSS, 40: 73–102. doi: 10.3917/rdm.040.0073
-
Devereux, G. (2009) La renonciation à l’identité. Défense contre l’anéantissement [The renunciation of identity. Defence against annihilation], Paris: Payot & Rivages.
-
Duby, G. (2020) Sur les traces de nos peurs [On the track of our fears], Paris: Textuel.
-
Ducloux, T. (2021) Religion in prison: elements for the construction of a sociologically non-specific issue, European Journal of Social Sciences, (59-2): 177–201.
-
Elias, N. (1991) Time: An Essay, Oxford: Blackwell.
-
Elias, N. (2000) The Civilizing Process, revised edn, Oxford: Blackwell.
-
Fanon, F. (1967) Racism and culture, in Toward the African Revolution, New York: Grove Press, pp 29–45.
-
Favret-Saada, J. (1977) Les Mots, la Mort, Les Sorts [Deadly Words: Witchcraft in the Bocage], Paris: Gallimard.
-
Freud, S. ([1926] 1977) Inhibition, Symptoms and Anxiety, New York: Norton.
-
Freud, S. ([1955] 2010) The Interpretation of Dreams, New York: Basic Books.
-
Freud, S. ([1927] 1961) The Future of an Illusion, New York: Norton.
-
Furedi, F. (1997) Culture of Fear: Risk-Taking and the Morality of Low Expectation, London/Washington DC: Cassell.
-
Goffman, E. (1961) Asylums: Essays on the Social Situation of Mental Patients and Other Inmates, New York: Doubleday.
-
Gueniche, K. (2004) Considérations psychologiques et psychopathologiques sur le risque suicidaire en milieu carcéral [Psychological and psychopathological considerations about suicidal risk in prisons], Perspectives Psy, 43: 58–64. doi: 10.1051/ppsy/2004431058
-
Khosrokhavar, F. (2004) L’Islam Dans Les Prisons [Islam in Prisons], Paris: Balland.
-
Kleres, J. and Wettergren, A. (2017) Fear, hope, anger, and guilt in climate activism, Social Movement Studies, 16: 507–19. doi: 10.1080/14742837.2017.1344546
-
Le Caisne, L. (2000) Prison: Une Ethnologue en Centrale [Prison: An Ethnologist in a Long-term Facility], Paris: Odile Jacob.
-
Le Caisne, L. (2004) L’économie des valeurs. Distinction et classement en milieu carcéral’ [The economy of values. Distinction and classification in prisons], L’Année sociologique, 2004/2, 55: 511–37.
-
Levi, G. (1985) L’eredità Immateriale. Carriera di un Esorcista nel Piemonte del Seicento [The Immaterial Legacy. Career of an Exorcist in seventeenth-century Piedmont], Torino: Einaudi.
-
Martin, S. and Linpinsel, T. (eds) (2020) Angst in Kultur und Politik der Gegenwart. Beiträge zu Einer Gesellschaftswissenschaft der Angst [Fear in Contemporary Culture and Politics. Contributions to a Social Science of Fear], Wiesbaden: Springer VS.
-
Maruna, S., Wilson, L. and Curran, K. (2006) Why God is often found behind bars: prison conversions and the crisis of self-narrative, Research in Human Development, 3: 161–84. doi: 10.1207/s15427617rhd0302&3_6
-
Miguez, D. (2000) Jóvenes en riesgo y conversión religiosa. Esquemas cognitivos y transformación de la identidad en iglesias pentecostales e instituciones de minoridad [Youth at risk and religious conversion. Cognitive schemas and identity transformation in Pentecostal churches and minority institutions], Sociedad y Religion. Sociologia, Antropologia e Historia de la religion en el Cono Sur, (20/21): 1–23.
-
OIP (Observatoire International des Prisons) (2011) Rapport sur les conditions de détention en France [Report on detention conditions in France], Paris: La Découverte.
-
Pandolfo, S. (2018) Knot of the Soul. Madness, Psychoanalysis, Islam, Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
-
Radcliffe-Brown, A. (1952) Taboo, in Structure and Function in Primitive Society, Chicago, IL: Free Press, pp 133–53.
-
Rhazzali, M.K. (2010) L’Islam in Carcere. L’Esperienza Religiosa dei Giovani Musulmani Nelle Pigioni Italiane [Islam in Prison. The Religious Experience of Young Muslims in Italian Prisons], Milano: FrancoAngeli.
-
Riezler, K. (1944) The social psychology of fear, The American Journal of Sociology, 19(6): 489–98. doi: 10.1086/219471
-
Rostaing, C. (1997) La Relation Carcérale. Identités et Rapports Sociaux Dans Les Prisons de Femmes [The Carceral Relationship. Identities and Social Relations in Prisons for Women], Paris: Presses Universitaires de France.
-
Sarg, R. and Lamine, A.S. (2011) La religion en prison, norme structurante, réhabilitation de soi, stratégie de résistance [Religion in prison. Structuring norm, self-rehabilitation, resistance strategy], Archives de Sciences Sociales des Religions, 1(153): 85–104. doi: 10.4000/assr.22761
-
Schmitz, A., Flemmen, M. and Rosenlund, L. (2018) Social class, symbolic domination, and angst: the example of the Norwegian social space, The Sociological Review, 66: 623–44. doi: 10.1177/0038026117738924
-
Tudor, A. (2003) A (macro) sociology of fear?, The Sociological Review, 51: 238–56. doi: 10.1111/1467-954X.00417
Search for other papers by Thibault Ducloux in
Current site
Google Scholar
| May 2022 onwards | Past Year | Past 30 Days | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Abstract Views | 694 | 287 | 12 |
| Full Text Views | 779 | 5 | 1 |
| PDF Downloads | 428 | 5 | 0 |
Institutional librarians can find more information about free trials here
We are a leading social science publisher
committed to making a difference.
Bristol University Press and
Policy Press
bristoluniversitypress.co.uk