Enquêter dans les lieux d’enfermement. Retour collectif sur une expérience de recherche

Abstract

Social science research on confinement relies heavily on the conduct of qualitative surveys within confinement institutions. This text provides a collective methodological analysis based on the investigations carried out in six national contexts (Cameroon, France, Germany, Qatar, Romania, Spain) by the members of the TerrFerme research team. The investigations are carried out in confinement settings (prisons, administrative detention centres for foreigners, closed accommodation for foreign workers). The theme of the openness/closedness of these places, central to their political treatment as well as to their scientific apprehension, quickly emerged as the common denominator of these investigations. Doing fieldwork within the walls of closed settings is now possible thanks to the relative openness of carceral institutions: negotiations with public authorities and with non-governmental actors have opened to some of us the doors of the places we wanted to investigate in, and have conditioned our positions inside. But the difficulties others encountered have shown the limits of this openness and have pushed us to also investigate outside those places: in these cases, the organisation of surveillance in a social and spatial continuum guided our fieldwork.

Keywords

• Confinement
• Constraint
• Prison
• Detention Centre
• Labour camp
• fieldwork