Visualising critical criminology: Participatory creative research methods in criminological research in a prison-university learning partnership
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.56433/q7xqtq41Keywords:
Prison Education, Emancipatory Creative Pedagogy, Critical Criminology, Hidden CurriculumAbstract
Creative, emancipatory pedagogies have the power and potential to enhance teaching and learning while also subverting restrictive features of traditional prison education. Through presenting the findings from two prison based criminology classrooms in Cork, Ireland and Belfast, Northern Ireland, this paper argues that using cross disciplinary, creative pedagogies can enhance a “critical criminology” curriculum and bring abstract concepts to life in restricted classroom contexts. These classrooms, joined together under the HEA funded North South Together (“Together”) participatory action research project, centred lived experience, reflective learning and dialogic learning to foster a convivial environment for university based students to study alongside classmates in prison. The application of creative practices in the classrooms subvert the “hidden curriculum” (Jackson, 1968) of traditional prison and university education spaces through encouraging students to bring in their lived experience, sensory reflections, and mutual learning. Through creative group work projects, students co-produced artefacts that represented the theories and concepts studied throughout the semester. This paper analyses two pieces of artwork: a paper mache volcano that represents the pains of incarceration and social control and collage artwork that represents sigma, labelling, and person centred language. The analysis of these artefacts revealed three key elements of creative teaching and learning: (a) putting into practice 'emancipatory pedagogy’ within challenging constraints of prison education classrooms, which allows abstract criminological concepts to come to life (b) producing civic space through the practice of conviviality and generativity across diverse learner groups and across institutions (c) subverting the the “hidden curriculum” of contemporary social science and prison education classrooms.
References
Aresti, A., Darke, S. and Manlow, D. (2016). Bridging the gap: Giving public voice to prisoners and former prisoners through research activism, Prison Service Journal, 224, 3–13.
Armstrong, R. and Ludlow, A. (2016). Educational partnerships between universities and prisons: How Learning Together can be individually, socially and institutionally transformative’, Prison Service Journal, 225, 9–17.
Back, L., and Sinha, S. (2016). Multicultural Conviviality in the Midst of Racism’s Ruins. Journal of Intercultural Studies, 37 (5), 517–532.
Bamenga, L. (2021). Good INtentions don't blunt the impact of dehumanizing words, see here: https://www.themarshallproject.org/2021/04/12/good-intentions-don-t-blunt-the-impact-of-dehumanizing-words
Berg, M.L., and Nowicka, M., (2019). Introduction: Convivial Tools for Research and Practice. In: M.L. Berg, and M. Nowicka, eds. Studying Diversity, Migration and Urban Multiculture: Convivial Tools for Research and Practice. London: UCL Press.
Behan, C. (2020). No longer a “collateral consequence”: Imprisonment and the reframing of citizenship, Articles. 36.
https://arrow.tudublin.ie/aaschlawart/36
Behan, C. (2015). Citizens with Convictions: Prisoners, Political Participation and Civic Engagement, Political Studies Association Conference, Sheffield, available at: https://www.psa.ac.uk/sites/default/files/conference/papers/2015/Citizens%20with%20Convictions%20PSA%202015_6.pdf
Billies, M., Francisco, V., Krueger, P. and Linville, D. (2010). Participatory action research: Our methodological roots, International Review of Qualitative Research, 3(3), 277–86.
Borges J.C., Ferreira TC, Borges de Oliveira M.S., et al. (2017). Hidden curriculum in student organizations: Learning, practice, socialization and responsible management in a business school. International Journal of Management Education 15(2B), 153–161.
Brown, M. and Carrabine, E. (2017). Routledge International Handbook of Visual Criminology. London: Routledge.
Charlton, J.I. (1998). Nothing About Us Without Us: Disability Oppression and Empowerment, Los Angeles: University of California Press.
Bumiller, K. (2013). Transformative learning in prisons and universities: Reflections on homologies of institutional power’, in S.W. Davis and B.S Roswell (eds), Turning Teaching Inside Out: A Pedagogy of Transformation for Community-Based Education (pp 177–86), New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Butin, D. (2013). The walls we build and break apart: Inside-Out as transformational pedagogy, S.W. Davis and B.S Roswell (eds), Turning Teaching Inside Out: A Pedagogy of Transformation for CommunityBased Education (pp x–xi), New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Cooper, T. and Cronin, J. (2021). Visual thinking for convivial learning in Cork Prison, Cork: Print Shark https://hdl.handle.net/10468/13416
Costelloe, A. (2003). Third level education in Irish prisons: who participates and why?, PhD thesis, DOI: 10.21954/OU.RO.0000F9FF.
Dale, J. (2011). Prison Diary, PEN, https://pen.org/prison-diary/
Cox, A. (2020). The language of incarceration. Incarceration, 1(1). https://doi.org/10.1177/2632666320940859
Chrysanthi S. L. and Perez. G.. (2018-2019). Reading “Women Don’t Riot” After the Riot: Creating a University-Prison Collaboration, Journal of Prison Education and Reentry, 5(2), 144-156.
Davis , A. (2003). Are Prisons Obsolete? New York: Seven Stories Press.
Davis, A.Y., Dent, G., Meiners, E.R. and RIchie, B.E. (2022). Abolition. Feminism. Now. Chicago, IL: Haymarket Books.
Davis, S.W. and Roswell, B.S. (eds) (2013a). Turning Teaching Inside Out: A Pedagogy of Transformation for Community-Based Education, New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
DelSesto, M. J., & Sellers, D. L. (2022). Inside-Out as Humanistic Pedagogy. Humanity & Society, 46(4), 665-686.
Draus, P. J., & Lempert, L. B. (2013). Growing pains: developing collective efficacy in the Detroit Theory Group. The Prison Journal, 93(2), 139–162.
Earle, R. (2018), Convict criminology in England: Developments and dilemmas, British Journal of Criminology, 58(6), 1499–516.
Ellis, E. (2020). An open letter to our friends on the question of language. Parole Preparation & Appeal Resources. https://ir.lawnet.fordham.edu/pp/5
Fals Borda, O. (1999). Kinsey Dialogue Series #1: The origins and challenges of participatory action research, Participatory Research and Practice, 10.
Fassin, D. (2016). Prison Worlds: An Ethnography of the Carceral Condition, Polity Press: Cambridge, UK.
Fine, M., & Torre, M. E. (2021). The essentials of critical participatory research, American Psychological Association https://doi.org/10.1037/0000241-000
Finnegan, F. (2020). Moving against and beyond neoliberal higher education in Ireland, in Lyn Tett, and Mary Hamilton (eds), Resisting Neoliberalism in Education: Local, National and Transnational Perspectives (Bristol, Policy Press), https://doi.org/10.1332/policypress/9781447350057.003.0011
Foucault, M. (1975/1991). Discipline and Punish - The birth of the prison, London: Penguin books. .
Freire, P. (1970/2005). Pedagogy of the Oppressed (30th anniversary edn), translated by Myra Bergman Ramos, New York: Continuum.
Gariglio, L. (2015). Photo-elicitation in Prison: Visual Methods and Visual Culture. Border Criminologies (University of Oxford). Post 13 March [Online] https://blogs.law.ox.ac.uk/research-subject-groups/centre-criminology/centreborder-criminologies/blog/2015/03/photo-elicitation
Gray, N., Ward, J. and Fogarty, J. (2019). Transformative learning through university and prison partnerships: reflections from “Learning Together” pedagogical practice. Journal of Prison Education and Reentry. 6 (1), 7-24. https://doi.org/10.25771/jbrt-q510
Gelsthorpe, L. (1990). ‘Feminist methodologies in criminology: A new approach or old wine in new bottles?’, in L. Gelsthorpe and A. Morris (eds), Feminist Perspectives in Criminology, Maidenhead, Berks: Open University Press
Glanton, N. (2023). Adult education in a neoliberal policy paradigm, in: Irish Educational Studies, 42(4), 787–803.
Giroux, H. A.(2022). Pedagogy of Resistance: Against Manufactured Ignorance. London: Bloomsbury Academic
Giroux, H.A. (1983). Theories of reproduction and resistance in the new sociology of education: A critical analysis. Harvard Educational Review, 53(3), 257–293. https://doi.org/10.17763/haer.53.3.a67x4u33g7682734
Goffman, E. (1961/2022). Asylums: essays on the social institution of mental patients and other inmates, Garden City, N.Y.: Anchor Books.
Grummell, B., Lynch, K. (2016). New Managerialism: A Political Project in Irish Education. In: Murphy, M., Dukelow, F. (eds) The Irish Welfare State in the Twenty-First Century. London: Palgrave Macmillan. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-57138-0_10
Hayes, K. and Kaba, M. (2023). Let this Radicalize You-Organizing and the Revolution of Reciprocal Care, Chicago, IL: Haymarket Books.
Herzing, R. and Piche, J. (2024). How to Abolish Prisons- Lessons from the Movement against Imprisonment, Chicago, IL: Haymarket Books.
Hibbert, Paul and Wright, April L. (2023). Challenging the hidden curriculum : building a lived process for responsibility in responsible management education. Management Learning, 54(3), 418 -431.
Hibbert, P., & Wright, A. L. (2023). Challenging the hidden curriculum: Building a lived process for responsibility in responsible management education. Management Learning, 54(3), 418-431. https://doi.org/10.1177/13505076221132981
Holland, C., Lorenzi, F., & Hall, T. (2016). Performance anxiety in academia: Tensions within research assessment exercises in an age of austerity. Policy Futures in Education, 14(8), 1101-1116. https://doi-org.ucc.idm.oclc.org/10.1177/1478210316664263
Honeywell, D. (2021). The Ambiguities of Desistance: Ex-Offenders, Higher Education and the Desistance Journey (first edn), Bingley: Emerald Publishing.
hooks, b. (1994). Teaching to Transgress : Education as the Practice of Freedom. New York: Routledge.
Illich, I. (1973). Tools for Conviviality. New York: Harper & Row
Inside-Out Center (2024). https://www.insideoutcenter.org/
Irish Prisons (2024). https://www.irishprisons.ie/prison/cork-prison/
Jackson, P. (1968). Life in Classrooms. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston Inc.
Kaba, M. (2021). We Do This ‘Til We Free us: Abolitionist Organizing and Transforming Justice. Chicago IL: Haymarket Books.
Lenette, C., Stavropoulou, N., Nunn, C., Kong, S.T., Cook, T., Coddington, K. and Banks, S. (2019). Brushed under the carpet: Examining the complexities of participatory research, Research for All, 3(2), 161–79.
Link, T. C. (2016). Breaking down barriers: review of the implementation of an inside/out prison exchange program in a jail setting, part 1. Journal of Prison Education and Reentry, 3(1). DOI 10.15845/jper.v3i1.923
Love, B. (2019). Chapter One: “We Who Are Dark” in We Want to Do More Than Survive: Abolitionist Teaching and the Pursuit of Educational Freedom. Boston MA: Beacon Press.
Maruna, S. (2017). Desistance as a social movement, Irish Probation Journal, 14(1), 5–20.
McLaren P. (2015). Pedagogy of Insurrection: From Resurrection to Revolution, New York: Peter Lang.
McNaull, G., Swirak, K., White, K. Maruna, S., O’Neill M. and Cronin, M. (2023). Emancipatory Pedagogy in Prison: Participatory Action Research and Prison/ University Partnerships, Irish Probation Journal, 20, 95-129 https://www.probation.ie/EN/PB/0/F969BAE73D87DA7D80258A7600512536/$File/06%20IPJ%20Vol%2020%20Emancipatory%20Pedagogy%20in%20Prison.pdf
McNaull, G., Johnson, M., Maruna, S., Hutt, D., and Scully, H. (2024) Collaborative Research in a Pandemic: Co-producing solutions to a crisis, Prison Service Journal, 272, 66-72.
Mercille, J., & Murphy, E. (2017). The Neoliberalization of Irish Higher Education under Austerity. Critical Sociology, 43(3), 371-387 https://doi.org/10.1177/0896920515607074
Noble, G., (2013). Cosmopolitan Habits: The Capacities and Habitats of Intercultural Conviviality. Body & Society, 19 (2-3), 162–185.
Northern Ireland Department of Justice, 2024 https://www.justice-ni.gov.uk/topics/prisons/prison-estate
North South Together (2024). Retrieved 23 September 2024, from https://www.northsouthtogether.com
Nouri, A. & Sajjadi, S. (2014). Emancipatory Pedagogy in Practice: Aims, Principles and Curriculum Orientation. International Journal of Critical Pedagogy 5(2), 76-87. https://libjournal.uncg.edu/ijcp/article/view/228
O’Neill, M. (2001). Prostitution and Feminism: Towards a Politics of Feeling, Cambridge, UK: Polity Press
O’Neill, M. (2010). Culture, criminology and sex work: Resisting regulation through radical democracy and participatory action research (PAR), Journal of Law and Society, 37(1), 210–32.
Peyrefitte, M. (2021). Writing and exhibiting a “live” and convivial sociology: Portraiture and women’s lived experiences of a French suburb, The Sociological Review, 69(6), 1195–213.
Pompa, L. (2013). One brick at a time: The power and possibility of dialogue across the prison wall, The Prison Journal, 93(2), 127–34
Prison Policy (2024). https://www.prisonpolicy.org/
Ruggiero, V. ( 2018 ). No prison: old and new challenges, in M. Pavarini and L. Ferraro (eds) No Prison, Capel Dewi: EG Press Limited, 91– 110.
Schubotz, D. (2019). Participatory action research, in SAGE Research Methods Foundations, New York: Sage.
Shammas, V. ( 2017). The pains of imprisonment, in: Kerley, K.R. The Encyclopedia of Corrections, John Wiley & Sons.
Shor, I. (1992). Empowering Education: Critical Teaching for Social Change. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
Smart , C. (1976). Women, Crime, and Criminology: A Feminist Critique, London: London: Routledge & Kegan Pau
Sontag, S. (1971). On Photography. London: Penguin.
Spike Island Cork. (2024, June 6). Decade foyer. Spike Island Cork. https://www.spikeislandcork.ie/decade-foyer/
Sykes, G. M. (1958/2007). The society of captives: A study of a maximum security prison (First Princeton classic edition). Princeton University Press.
Toch, H. (1967). The study of man – The convict as researcher, Trans-action, 4(9), 72–5.
Ugwudike, P. (2015). An introduction to critical criminology Policy Press, Bristol: UK.
Walk Create (2021). Walking Publics, Walking Art https://walkcreate.gla.ac.uk/
Warner, K. (2018). Every Possible Learning Opportunity: The Capacity of Education in Prison to Challenge dehumanisation and liberate ‘the whole person’ in: Advancing Corrections Journal: Edition #6-2018,
Warr, J. (2021). "Fire! Fire! – The Prison Cell and the Thick Sensuality of Trappedness", Herrity, K., Schmidt, B.E. and Warr, J. (Ed.) Sensory Penalities: Exploring the Senses in Spaces of Punishment and Social Control (Emerald Studies in Culture, Criminal Justice and the Arts), Emerald Publishing
Wilson, S. (2008). Research Is Ceremony: Indigenous Research Methods, Fernwood Publishing
Wilson- Gilmore, R. (2022). Abolition Geography: Essays Towards Liberation, Verso books: London.
Wise, A., and Noble, G., (2016). Convivialities: An Orientation. Journal of Intercultural Studies, 37(5), 423–431.
Downloads
Published
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2025 Kathleen White, Katharina Swirak, James Cronin, Gillian McNaull
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms:
- Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.
- Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.
- Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work (See The Effect of Open Access).
Journal of Perspectives in Applied Academic Practice has made best effort to ensure accuracy of the contents of this journal, however makes no claims to the authenticity and completeness of the articles published. Authors are responsible for ensuring copyright clearance for any images, tables etc which are supplied from an outside source.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
