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A Visual and Sensory Participatory Methodology to Explore Social Perceptions: A Case Study of the San Vittore Prison in Milan, Italy

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Abstract

A new range of visual and sensory strategies is emerging as an alternative mode of knowledge in criminology. Drawing on data from a pilot study, which started in 2017 at San Vittore Prison (in Milan, Italy), we discuss the potential, utility and the limitations of a visual and mobile participatory methodology for investigating what is perceived and expected with regard to the presence of prison in today’s urban environment. We do this, first, by considering in detail two techniques for collecting qualitative data: qualitative interviews with mental images (a form of graphic elicitation) and itinerant soliloquies—a mobile methodology. With respect to the latter, we suggest that the use of drawing as a non-representational visual tool, in connection with multisensory aspects of walking, can facilitate the emergence of often-ignored perspectives, perceptions and narratives about prison. Finally, we suggest how such a project could be useful for the emerging connections between visual, aesthetic and narrative criminologies.

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Notes

  1. For a discussion of how to investigate cities through other methods involving walking, such as mapping and working with archives, see Back and Puwar (2013); see also Back (2017).

  2. La Nave is a program in San Vittore Prison for substance-dependent prisoners—specifically, those individuals who are considered sufficiently motivated to address their addictions and desist from crime. The aim is to encourage the participants in La Nave to understand the psycho-social processes that led to addiction and deviance.

  3. Earle (2017: 125) writes: “Prisons, with their potential for solitary confinement ever-present, confront the prisoner with the classic polarities of existential ambivalence: hell is other people and hell is no people at all.”

  4. As Ben-Moshe (2018: 348) adds, “Reclaiming abolition as dis-epistemology and its lack of certainty would solidify abolition as fashioning new ways of envisioning the world and opening up opportunities that are not closed off by readymade prescriptions.”

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Law, University of Milano-Bicocca, Piazza dell’Ateneo Nuovo, 1, 20126, Milan, Italy

    Lorenzo Natali

  2. Department of Sociology and Social Research, University of Milano-Bicocca, Milan, Italy

    Glenda Acito, Cristiano Mutti & Valentina Anzoise

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  1. Lorenzo Natali
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  4. Valentina Anzoise
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Correspondence to Lorenzo Natali.

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Natali, L., Acito, G., Mutti, C. et al. A Visual and Sensory Participatory Methodology to Explore Social Perceptions: A Case Study of the San Vittore Prison in Milan, Italy. Crit Crim 29, 783–800 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10612-020-09508-2

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