Improvisations of leisure behind bars

The core of this research is to identify and typify nuances of leisure as strategies (re)created by convicted young foreigners, who are compelled to live 24/7 behind bars, under countless deprivations and limitations imposed by those who, formally, rule the prison.

On an overall sense, being under a custodial sentence may reflect, for those who are imprisoned, effective forms of lack of autonomy. Nevertheless, focused interactions on leisure, along the daily routines of inmates, can exhibit: the search of sources of momentary joy through shared belongings of pleasure, traces of creativeness, (re)conversion of dramatic episodes and appointments of critical sense of humor. Likewise, encounters on leisure may shape or be shaped by implicit or explicit formulas of resistance, intimidation and/or social distinction amongst those who have to face a prison sentence.

Under the scope of the Symbolic Interactionism approach, this communication is enlightened by a multiplicity of leisure expressions as informally experienced and interpreted by 18 (eighteen) convicted young foreigners in a Portuguese prison with an outstanding variety of nationalities. Therefore, an innovative combination of qualitative techniques was adapted to the specificities of the prison context and the socio-cultural backgrounds of those who were the subjects of study.

Hence, a comprehensive analysis is going to reveal exclusive and inclusive leisure activities which are a double bladed sword: conformity and confrontation to the restrictions and tensions of a prison environment. Alike, one is going to have a more in-depth knowledge on how do collective and individual singularities are likely to emerge from the participation on multiple gatherings promoted by young foreigners within the prison walls.

In sum, it is going to be presented groundbreaking data related to leisure (re)configurations as far as confinement experiences are concerned.