“Just because I’ve gone to prison, my mum hat doesn’t switch off”: An analysis of Black mothers’ narratives of imprisonment and life after release

Thomas, Monica 2023. “Just because I’ve gone to prison, my mum hat doesn’t switch off”: An analysis of Black mothers’ narratives of imprisonment and life after release. PhD Thesis, Cardiff University. Item availability restricted.

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Abstract

Guided by a Black feminist narrative approach, this thesis details the intersectional experiences of Black mothers during and after their imprisonment within the penal jurisdiction of England and Wales, with emphasis placed on exploring the complexity and multifaceted nature of such experiences, rather than seeking to portray something singular or monolith. To do this, between April 2020 and December 2020 I conducted semi-structured narrative interviews with nine mothers who identified as Black or Black-mixed-race and were, or had previously been, imprisoned in the women’s prison estate in England, as there are no women’s prisons in Wales. My decision to foreground Black mothering narratives distinguishes this research from the vast body of criminological literature that uses ‘Whiteness’ as an overarching standard to which all people racialised an ‘non-White’ are grouped together and compared against. This thesis thus contributes to the development of a Black Feminist Criminology that is responsive to the personal and collective histories that uniquely shape Black women’s experiences of criminal justice (see Potter 2006). Building upon existing sociological and criminological frameworks, the key findings presented in this thesis can be grouped into four main overarching concepts: (1) ‘reproductive oppression’ (see Hayes et al 2020), (2) ‘the [racialised] pains of [maternal] imprisonment’ (see Sykes 1986), (3) ‘motherwork’ (see Collins 1984) and (4) ‘responsibilisation’. Close attention is thus given to how existing frameworks can be reworked and expanded to provide a new and informed understanding of the multi-layered identities and experiences of Black mothers during and after imprisonment. Throughout the thesis, attention is also placed on theoretical conceptualisations of time, which I describe as being ‘Stretched’, ‘Sticky’ and ‘Missed’ in relation to Black mothering narratives of imprisonment, reflecting the temporal relationship between processes of racialisation and imprisonment. Based on my analysis of the mothers’ narratives, I conclude that a Black feminist abolitionist stance is necessary for the imagining of new worlds and the challenging of our current one, to advocate for a future where racialised and gendered oppressions are no longer woven into the fabric of societal institutions and where justice is rooted in care, safety and restoration rather than harm.

Item Type:	Thesis (PhD)
Date Type:	Completion
Status:	Unpublished
Schools:	Social Sciences (Includes Criminology and Education)
Subjects:	H Social Sciences > H Social Sciences (General)
Date of First Compliant Deposit:	5 October 2023
Last Modified:	06 Oct 2023 12:58
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/163001

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