Behind the Mask: Navigating and Negotiating the Prison Space
摘要
This chapter explores several ways in which Black women navigate aspects of their prison experience. For example, how do Black women deal with the disadvantages they face, the injustices they witness and the microaggressionsmicroaggressions they encounter. This chapter addresses these questions through the narrative of numerous Black women in open and closed prisons. GoffmanGoffman’s work on Impression Management (IMIM)Impression Management (IM) is utilised and applied in a new way to provide an in-depth understanding of the self-presentationself-presentation Black women adopt to make their imprisonment manageable. The pains of presenting themselves in this way is revealed for full transparency of the sacrifices, burdens, and moral turmoil they undergo to prevent the mask slipping. In addition, strategies like ‘doing it by the bookby the book’ are explored as an additional method to negotiating the prison space. Lastly, the chapter concludes with insightful case study of a woman called NatashaNatasha. Natasha adopted a number of strategies that allowed her to get her points across as well as retaining her personality in moments of conflictconflictand challengechallenge.