Abstract
In France, women can be incarcerated during pregnancy and can keep their babies with them in prison up to the age of 18 months. The small number of nurseries in France and their unequal geographic distribution as well as the high percentage of foreign prisoners often result in women's isolation from their usual cultural environment. Family members and cultural community play a crucial role in the process of mothering. The aim of this study is to explore through these mothers’ narratives how they experience the cultural aspects of this process in the prison environment. We conducted semi-structured interviews to collect the experience of 25 mothers and 5 pregnant women in 13 different prison nurseries in France and used interpretative phenomenological analysis to explore the data. Four different themes emerged: prison: repression of cultural practices, prison: a culture of its own, loss of traditional culture, and cultural hybridization. The specific environmental architecture and operating rules in prison nurseries may induce acute repression regarding cultural ways of mothering. Considering both cultural permeability specific to the peripartum period during which women tend to more easily embrace cultural aspects from their environment, and family distance which restrains cultural transmission, these mothers gather multiple factors of vulnerability for full prisonization, as a form of forced assimilation to prison culture. But a sort of specific hybrid prison culture around motherhood seems to emerge instead, in a process similar to creolization.
Similar content being viewed by others
Data Availability
All data generated or analyzed during this study are included in this published article and tables.
Notes
From the research and health departments of the central prison administration, each interregional prison administration, and every director of every prison visited.
References
Bastide, Roger 1971 African Civilisations in the New World London: C. Hurst
Bazan, Ariane, Sandra Jorge Mendes, Julie Antoine-Moussiaux, and Déborah. Prys 2019 Empirical Evidence for Psychic Transparency in Pregnancy. Psychoanalytic Psychology 36(3): 239–248
Bhabha, Homi K., and Professor of English and African-American Literature Homi K. Bhabha 2004 The Location of Culture. Psychology Press.
Bhatia, Sunil, and Anjali Ram 2004 Culture, Hybridity, and the Dialogical Self: Cases From the South Asian Diaspora. Mind, Culture, and Activity 11(3): 224–240
Bril, Blandine, and Henri Lehalle 1988 Le développement psychologique est-il universel? Approches interculturelles. https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k48073532.
Clemmer, Donald 1950 Observations on Imprisonment as a Source of Criminality. Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology 41: 311
Code de Procédure Pénale - Article D401, vol.D401 1958 Code de Procédure Pénale.
Council of Europe 1983 Convention on the Transfer of Sentenced Persons. https://www.coe.int/en/web/conventions/full-list.
Décret N° 2013-368 Du 30 Avril 2013 Relatif Aux Règlements Intérieurs Types Des Établissements Pénitentiaires 2013 2013-368.
Delaisi de Parseval, Geneviève, and Suzanne Lallemand 1980 L’Art d’accommoder les bébés. Paris: Éditions du Seuil.
Devereux, George 1980 Basic Problems of Ethnopsychiatry. Basia Miller Gulati, tran,. 1st Edition. Chicago: University of Chicago Press
Foucault, Michel 1995 Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison. 2nd Vintage Books ed édition. New York: Vintage.
Frazier, E. Franklin, and Anthony Platt 2001 The Negro Family in the United States. New edition édition. Notre Dame, Ind: University of Notre Dame Press.
Ghasarian, Christian 2002 La Réunion : acculturation, créolisation et réinventions culturelles. Ethnologie Francaise 32(4): 663–676
Glissant, Edouard 1992 Caribbean Discourse: Selected Essays Charlottesville, VA: University Press of Virginia
Goffman, Erving 1961 Asylums: Essays on the Social Situation of Mental Patients and Other Inmates New York, NY: Anchor Books
Goldstone, Jack A., and Bert Useem 1999 Prison Riots as Microrevolutions: An Extension of State-Centered Theories of Revolution. American Journal of Sociology 104(4): 985–1029
Grigoriadis, Sophie, Gail Erlick Robinson, Kenneth Fung et al 2009 Traditional Postpartum Practices and Rituals: Clinical Implications. Canadian Journal of Psychiatry 54(12): 834–840
Handbook on the Classification of Prisoners 2020. UNODC - United nations office on Drugs and Crime. https://www.unodc.org/documents/dohadeclaration/Prisons/HandBookPrisonerClassification/20-01921_Classification_of_Prisoners_Ebook.pdf.
Justice/Annuaires et Contacts/Annuaire Des Directions Interrégionales (AP) http://www.annuaires.justice.gouv.fr/annuaires-12162/annuaire-des-directions-interregionales-ap-21787.html#cmq_path=liste&cmq_page=1.
LeVine, Robert A., Patrice M. Miller, and Mary Maxwell West 1988 Parental Behavior in Diverse Societies. Parental Behavior in Diverse Societies. San Francisco, CA, US: Jossey-Bass.
LOI N° 2009-1436 - Article 26 2009 2009-1436.
Massé, Raymond 2013 Creolization and the quest for recognition. L’Homme. Revue française d’anthropologie(207–208). Éditions de l’EHESS: 135–157.
Mead, Margaret 1935 Sex and Temperament: In Three Primitive Societies. 1st edition. Harper Perennial.
Mexico City Declaration on Cultural Policies, World Conference on Cultural Policies | United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization 1982. http://www.unesco.org/new/en/culture/themes/dynamic-content-single-view/news/mexico_city_declaration_on_cultural_policies_world_conferen/
Ministère de la justice 2016 Etablissements Pénitentiaires Disposant de Quartier Femmes. http://www.justice.gouv.fr/art_pix/Carte_quartiers_femmes_02_2016.pdf
Moorthy, Shanti, and Ashraf Jamal, eds. 2009 Indian Ocean Studies: Cultural, Social, and Political Perspectives.
Moro, M.R. 2004 Transcultural approach in perinatality. Journal de Gynecologie, Obstetrique et Biologie de la Reproduction 33(1 Suppl): S5-10
Moro, Marie Rose 2014 Parenthood in Migration: How to Face Vulnerability. Culture, Medicine and Psychiatry 38(1): 13–27
Moro, Marie Rose, Quitterie de La Noë, Yoram Mouchenik, and Collectif 2006 Manuel de psychiatrie transculturelle: Travail clinique, travail social. Grenoble: Pensée sauvage.
Murdock, George P., and Douglas R. White 1969 Standard Cross-Cultural Sample. Ethnology VIII(4).
Ogrizek, Anais, Jonathan Lachal, and Marie Rose Moro 2021 The Process of Becoming a Mother in French Prison Nurseries: A Qualitative Study. Maternal and Child Health Journal 26(2): 367–380
Oxford Dictionary Definition of “Prisonization.” Oxford Dictionary. https://www.lexico.com/definition/prisonization
Prison Watch 2020 Foreign Prisoners. https://prisonwatch.org/foreign-prisoners/, accessed January 15, 2021.
Richman, Amy L., Patrice M. Miller, and Robert A. LeVine 1992 Cultural and Educational Variations in Maternal Responsiveness. Developmental Psychology 28(4): 614–621
Smith, J. A. 1996 Beyond the Divide between Cognition and Discourse: Using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis in Health Psychology. Psychology & Health 11(2):261271.
Smith, J.A. 2008 Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis. Qualitative Psychology. A Practical Guide to Research Methods,. 2nd Edition. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications Ltd.
Staff, Global Legal Research Directorate 2014 Laws on Children Residing with Parents in Prison. //www.loc.gov/law/help/children-residing-with-parents-in-prison/foreign.php
Stork, Hélène 1993 Variations culturelles des techniques de maternage et de prévention précoce. Enfants d’ici, enfants d’ailleurs. ERES. https://www-cairn-info.sirius.parisdescartes.fr/enfants-d-ici-enfants-d-ailleurs--9782865862511-page-53.htm
Sykes, Gresham M., and Bruce Western 2007 The Society of Captives: A Study of a Maximum Security Prison,. Revised. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press
Tylor, Edward Burnett 1871Primitive Culture: Researches Into the Development of Mythology, Philosophy, Religion, Art, and Custom. J. Murray.
United Nations Rules for the Treatment of Women Prisoners and Non-Custodial Measures for Women Offenders (the Bangkok Rules) 2017. Routledge. https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/9781351553186/chapters/https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315089461-21
Vie En Prison : Règles de Sécurité, Activités, Liens Avec l’extérieur | Service-Public.Fr 2019. https://www.service-public.fr/particuliers/vosdroits/F14149
Funding
This research was jointly supported by grants from the Mustela Foundation and from the French West Indies University and the Harriet Hale Woolley Scholarship.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Contributions
Doctors Ogrizek, Radjack, and Lachal conceptualized and designed the study, designed the data collection instruments, collected the data, carried out the initial analyses, drafted the initial manuscript, and reviewed and revised the manuscript. Prof Moro conceptualized and designed the study, coordinated, and supervised data collection, and critically reviewed the manuscript for important intellectual content. All authors approved the final manuscript as submitted and agree to be accountable for all aspects of the work.
Corresponding author
Ethics declarations
Conflict of interest:
The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.
Ethical Approval
This study was approved by the ethics committee CER-PARIS DESCARTES (CER 2018-108, 19/01/2019).
Consent to Participate
All participants have given their consent to participate.
Consent for Publication
All participants have given their consent for publication.
Additional information
Publisher's Note
Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Ogrizek, A., Radjack, R., Moro, M.R. et al. The Cultural Hybridization of Mothering in French Prison Nurseries: A Qualitative Study. Cult Med Psychiatry 47, 422–442 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11013-022-09782-5
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11013-022-09782-5