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In this article, I discuss the process of conducting research with two vulnerable and hard-to-reach populations (homeless and incarcerated men) in three research locations characterized by varying levels of gatekeeping: a prison, public streets in an urban city, and a residential facility for homeless men. I argue that, despite the obstacles to independent research that gatekeepers (officials who can grant or deny researchers access to participants) pose, research with vulnerable, hard-to-reach populations in different field sites reveals some of the benefits of using field sites characterized by gatekeeping and strict rules to which researchers must adhere. Many of these benefits, however, go unacknowledged in discussions of access in qualitative studies—especially in the penological literature. I conclude that, instead of shying away from qualitative prison studies, researchers should take advantage of the benefits that prisons offer as field sites.
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Penological literature has focused extensively, and often exclusively, on the “hypermasculine” nature of men’s prisons. A separate and relatively recent body of sociological research has explored “hybrid masculinities,” whereby (usually privileged) men selectively enact traits conventionally associated with subordinate masculinities and even femininities. In this article, I draw on 24 in-depth interviews with incarcerated men to argue that these men construct hybrid masculinities in response to their feelings of insecurity and to resist the hypermasculine prison environment. In so doing, I link theoretical literature on hybrid masculinities with penological research to explore how a particularly marginalized group of men construct hybrid masculinities to cope with and challenge hegemonic masculinity in prison.
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Purpose: Recent life-course scholarship has argued that desistance from (rather than persistence in) crime is a marker of adulthood. In this article, I argue that a commitment to desistance is only one of many elements of the participants’ sense of adult masculinity, which is best understood by drawing on theoretical literature on “hybrid masculinities.” By linking life-course criminological literature with recent theoretical advancements in the sociology of gender, I connect two important, but as yet independent, strands of research. Methods: Using the grounded theory approach to qualitative research, I performed inductive analyses of 24 in-depth interviews with adult men incarcerated at a state-run facility in the Northeastern USA. Results: I argue that the participants construct hybrid masculinities that combine conventionally masculine traits (such as being a provider and protector) with conventionally feminine traits (such as loyalty, humility, and emotional expressiveness). These hybrid masculinities manifest through the participants’ reliance on intangible markers of adulthood, and they emerge gradually over the men’s life course. I further argue that the disruptions that incarceration poses to the men’s life course impede their ability to realize their hybrid masculinities fully. Conclusion: The current research contributes to the burgeoning literature that attempts to correct the oversimplified portrayal of incarcerated men as singularly hypermasculine, and it also highlights how incarceration disrupts men’s life course, making it difficult for them to be the “hybrid” men that they wish to be. © 2020, Springer Nature Switzerland AG.
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Despite the well-established link between homelessness and incarceration, very little qualitative research has focused on the social processes that underlie this nexus. In this article, I draw on 19 in-depth interviews with incarcerated men who reported pre-prison housing instability, supplemented with 5 interviews with formerly-incarcerated men experiencing homelessness, to explore the gendered nature of the homelessness-incarceration nexus. I propose the concept of “liberative instability”—defined as an unfettered lifestyle characterized by double-edged freedom and independence—to explore the changing meaning of homelessness in men’s narratives of their life course. Additionally, I explore how themes of masculinity and liberative instability are embedded in men’s narratives of freedom and confinement as they reflect on their experiences with homelessness and incarceration. These findings animate existing quantitative research by highlighting that the homelessness-incarceration nexus cannot be understood fully or disrupted without considering the significance of age-graded cultural scripts regarding masculinity. © 2021 Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences.
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Penological research has extensively documented how incarcerated men's identities are shaped by the prison setting, highlighting how these men cope with and adapt to the 'pains of imprisonment' through careful emotion management. Significantly less research has focused explicitly on the role of emotion in incarcerated men's constructions of their selves. In this article, I draw on 24 in-depth interviews with incarcerated men to reveal how the prison setting generates negative emotions (such as sadness, shame, humiliation, and anger) that in turn perpetuate the isolation that these men face. Emotions thus constitute an overlooked source of these men's social marginalization. Additionally, I draw on theoretical literature derived from symbolic interactionism (and identity theory in particular) to explore how participants cope with, and make efforts to overcome, their negative emotions by engaging in active emotion and identity work centred on constructing morality narratives of pride, self-worth, and superiority. © 2021 The Author(s) 2021. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Centre for Crime and Justice Studies (ISTD). All rights reserved.
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Recent analyses of responses to coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) have posited that men’s dismissive attitudes toward the risks of the virus reflect their attempts to conform to masculine norms that valorize bravery and strength. In this article, the authors develop an alternative account of the gender differences in attitudes toward COVID-19. Drawing on three waves of in-depth interviews with college students and members of their households (n = 45) over a period of 16 weeks (for a total of 120 interviews), the authors find that men and women in comparable circumstances perceive similar risks of COVID-19, but they diverge in their attitudes toward, and responses to, these risks. Connecting scholarship on gender and care work with research on risk, the authors argue that gender differences in attitudes toward risk are influenced by the unique and strenuous care work responsibilities generated by the COVID-19 pandemic, which are borne primarily by women—and from which men are exempt. © The Author(s) 2020.
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