‘FIT AND RE-ORIENTATION’ –UNPACKING LAYERS OF CARCERAL DESIGN HERITAGE IN CONTEMPORARY DESIGN OF SPECIAL CARE

HOMES FOR YOUTH, AND ITS IMPACT ON WELL-BEING

FRANZ JAMESMFA, DOCTORAL STUDENT,

LECTURER, HDK –ACADEMY FOR DESIGN AND CRAFTS, UNIVERSITY OF GOTHENBURGPARTNER HEALSAFE INTERIOR

franz.james@hdk.gu.se

SEPIDEH OLAUSSONRN, CCRN, PHD. SAHLGRENSKA ACADEMY, UNIVERSITY OF GOTHENBURG.

sepideh.olausson@gu.se

3RD INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE FOR CARCERAL GEOGRAPHY

Introduction

• The physical environment – Place and space (Cresswell, 2015) Not only the built environment but also the socio-spatial aspects

• Well-being (Galvin & Todres, 2014)One’s specific experiences of being in the world, “dwelling-mobility” based on Heidegger's notion of dwelling.

• Particular carceral design heritage (Harrison, 2012; Wener 2012). Heritage is not only what is to come but also the past/history and how current ideologies, norms and values, implicit, affect the shape of the institutions.

Background

• Swedish National Board of Institutional Care (SiS)

• Children and adolescents in the need of compulsory care

• Special residential homes (n 23), planned standard units

• Three year multidisciplinary research project. Aim: Creating knowledge regarding the physical environment through the perspective of the incarcerated children and adolescents

Theoretical framework

• Queer phenomenology (Ahmed, 2006 )

• Carceral heritage and well-being

• Special residential homes, as experienced by incarcerated young people.

Aim

• Unpack and discuss carceral layers of particular design heritage, and its impact on well-being

• A model to illustrate the dialectic relationship between the physical environment and the incarcerated children and adolescents

Settings & participants • Former prisons, often rural settings in nature• Male adolescents 16-21 years of age, females 13-21 years of age

Methods

• Photovoice (Wang and Burris, 1997)• ’Sketch and Talk’ (James, 2017)

ORGANISATIONSNAMN (ÄNDRA SIDHUVUD VIA FLIKEN INFOGA-SIDHUVUD/SIDFOT)

Ethical considerations

• Vulnerable group

• Research person information, Informed consent

• Voluntary participation

• Approved by the committee of ethics (No: 1158-16)

”Sketch and Talk”

• Ethnographic visual data collection method • Qualitative data collection

• Developed by James (2017)

Sketch and Talk

• Open-ended interviews• Simultaneous documentation / visual documentation

• A way to embody/ take in the environment

Photovoice

• Ethnographic / visual method

• Combination of photos and open-ended interviews

• Photo documentation

• Freirian theory, Feminism and Critical conciseness

• Qualitative data

(Wang and Burris, 1997)

Photovoice

• Participants were invited to photograph various aspects of the environment / objects that mattered to them or associated with a feeling regardless of what the feeling was about.

• Polaroid camera was provided • The researchers were present while photos were taken

• Open ended interviews using the photos as a tool for reflection

Photovoice

’Sketch and Talk’

Orientation

How the physical environment ‘Fits’ or ‘Re-Orientates’, in relation to the youth’s “institutional carrier”.

Critical discussion• Carceral design heritage is shaped and formulated by how we choose to

define it in present time, heritage relates not only to materiality and design, also to politics, values, morals and norms (Hammerlin, 2018)

• The carceral interior design is repeatedly designed, not only through unconscious tradition and ideology, but also by how and where the interior is physically produced, and with that comes embedded norms and heritage

• Heritage is not simply a given spatial and socio-material tradition, it is also reproduces itself and as such producing new heritage to come.

Conclusion

It is of utter importance to critically consider the design of contemporary standard rooms in special youth homes and to lay the perspective of what is indented to be produced in this specific context as well to reevaluate the impact that carceral heritage may

have on well-being.

THANK YOU FOR LISTENING

FRANZ JAMES - franz.james@hdk.gu.seSEPIDEH OLAUSSON - sepideh.olausson@gu.se

References• Ahmed, S. (2006). Queer phenomenology: Orientations, objects, others. Durham and London: Duke University Press.

• Cresswell, T. (2015). Place : an introduction (2nd ed. ed.). Chichester: Chichester : John Wiley & Sons.

• Galvin, K., & Todres, L. (2014). Caring and well-being : a lifeworld approach.

• Hammerlin, Y. (2018). Materiality, Topography, Prison and ‘Human Turn’– A Theoretical Short Visit. In E. Fransson, F. Giofrè, & B. Johnsen (Eds.), Prison Architecture and Humans. Postboks 1900, 0055 Oslo, Norway: Nordic Open Access Scholarly Publishing (NOASP), Cappelen Damm Akademisk.

• Harrison, R. (2012). Heritage: Critical Approaches: United Kingdom: Routledge Ltd.

• Heidegger, M. (1962). Being and time. Oxford: Blackwell.

• James, F. (2017). "Sketch and Talk”: An ethnographic design method opening closed institutions. Open Design for E-very-thing. Hong Kong Design Institute and Cumulus International Association of Universities and Colleges of Art, Design and Media.

• James, F., & Olausson, S. (2018). Designing for care: employing ethnographic design methods at special care homes for young offenders – a pilot study. Design for Health, 1-15. doi:10.1080/24735132.2018.145678

• Statens institutionsstyrelse, S. (2017). SiS I KORTHET 2016 En samling statistiska uppgifter om SiS. Retrieved from https://www.stat-inst.se/globalassets/arlig-statistik/sis-i- korthet-2016.pdf

• Wang C, Burris MA. Photovoice: Concept, Methodology, and Use for Participatory Needs Assessment. Health Educ Behav. 1997;24(3):369-87.

• Wener, R. E. (2012). The Environmental Psychology of Prisons and Jails: Creating Humane Spaces in Secure Settings. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

https://www.stat-inst.se/globalassets/arlig-statistik/sis-i-%20korthet-2016.pdf